


Hold On Before You Go

by LightningMcMiche, YourFavouriteHue



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Bad Decisions, Chinguline is in sixth year, Everything's Baek's fault, Fantasy, Fluff, Gryffindor!Baek, Head Boy!Junmyeon, Hints of relatively graphic violence, Hufflepuff!Chanyeol, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of other kpop group members, Occasional Sneaking Out, Other EXO members appear too, Ravenclaw!Soo, Slytherin!Dae, Some ominous stuff, Swearing, Writer!Baek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-05 10:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17323265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningMcMiche/pseuds/LightningMcMiche, https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourFavouriteHue/pseuds/YourFavouriteHue
Summary: If Baekhyun tried to pinpoint what caused all of this to happen, he thought that Chanyeol really should have stopped him from leaving the common room that night.--------------------------------------Or, wherein Baekhyun’s writer’s block and sleep deprivation sets off a chain of disastrous events; Jongdae gets unwittingly dragged into this mess after witnessing said disastrous events; Chanyeol betrays his ‘no involvement policy’ (and gets 100% involved); and Kyungsoo isn’t making this any easier despite his claims to be the smartest.





	1. The Beginning i.e. Baekhyun’s Desperation | Baekhyun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, Baekhyun had just wanted to write...and he may have gotten a little sidetracked along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, 
> 
> Welcome to the first instalment of a multifandom fanfiction series by Miche (LightningMcMiche) and yours truly, YourFavouriteHue. My real name will not be revealed but you all may call me Niche :). 
> 
> Miche and I came up with this idea while Miche was introducing me to EXO (an EXOploration if you will - she's an EXO-L and I'm an ARMY), and when we realised that each chingu line member could easily fit into different Hogwarts houses we started to plan a Hogwarts AU. It was initially supposed to be a fun one shot but it expanded into this monster of a series. 
> 
> I hope y’all enjoy this book and give us constructive criticism. 
> 
> Peace out!  
> Niche 
> 
> P.S.  
> The only members I’m familiar with are EXO, BTS and a few other groups that are going to be feature in this series. I’m not familiar with the rest and they are prone to being OOC. I apologise for this and hope you can let this slide. Still, Miche knows them relatively better than I do, so hopefully we haven't gone too crazy. My bias group is BTS, but I love and stan EXO and the other groups that will feature here. My biases are Namjoon and Chanyeol.
> 
> _____________________________________________
> 
> Hey guys~~
> 
> Niche has pretty much summarized everything that I wanted to say. Honestly, I'm really excited. This chapter was only read and edited by me, Niche did all the writing! My chapter will be the second one, and we'll be alternating chapters, accordingly. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy reading this and please be kind!
> 
> Love, Miche xx

Desperation leads to disaster.

It was a mantra that Byun Baekhyun would repeat to himself for days after _it_ happened. Because Baekhyun had been desperate.

He wouldn't admit it though, oh no. Sleep deprivation combined with a writer’s block the size of Kim Junmyeon’s Gringotts account (which happened to be _quite_ generous) is what Baekhyun would eventually blame when he quite literally cast his way into disaster. But it was a testament to his character when he didn't believe his own bullshit. But he had a reputation to maintain, thank you very much, and he'd roll with it till he was buried in his grave.

However, the bitter truth was, no matter how hard he could try to convince himself, that the dusty old black book he held in his hands had single handedly ruined his life (but then again, it depended on how the situation was looked at).

The bitter truth was that he had fucked up.

Majorly.

 

* * *

 

_Three Weeks Ago_

 

“Sleep is for the weak.”

A scoff. “Your eyes are droopy as fuck and you’re muttering about flying pumpkin pastries with tiny antennas, which, by the way, is an ugly visual.”

“You’re an ugly visual.”

“And you’re weak,” Chanyeol retorted, glancing pointedly at the way Baekhyun was trying to lean his head on his shoulder. “As fuck.”

Baekhyun swiftly moved away from the warmth of Park Chanyeol’s (best friend and permanent pain in the _gluteus maximus_ ) shoulder, and glared at the six foot something (Like _really?_ He’d stopped growing in fifth year but it seemed like his best friend had just _started_ growing) Hufflepuff, determined to not fall for the urges of four poster beds and silk sheets, if only for the sake of his pride. It didn’t help that the cushions and couches in the Hufflepuff common room seemed to be designed just to take naps (Maybe that’s why Hufflepuffs were so chill. Naps were truly the answer to everything).

“Excuse you? I can totally pull off an all nighter,” Baekhyun’s chest seemed to puff up a little at that, as though he was trying to emphasise his point.

“I believe you, man,” Chanyeol was quick to reassure a sleep deprived Baekhyun, his tone conveying his concern that his friend was at risk of hurting his back from all the chest puffing.

It was pointless to argue with his sleep deprived friend after the exact threshold of ten o’clock at night, especially when said person was stubbornly determined to overcome his writer’s block.

Besides, Baekhyun _could_ stay awake through the night. If it only weren’t for the fact that he’d been staying up the entire week, scouring the library and other places of Hogwarts for ideas while slowly and surely driving himself insane.

“Why don’t you go to bed just this once?” Chanyeol suggested and raised an amused eyebrow at the affronted expression on Baekhyun’s face.

“No!” Baekhyun made a face, jabbing a finger at Chanyeol’s chest. “I have plans. Major plans. Magnanimous plans.” He nodded to himself seriously like he was trying to remind himself what exactly his plans were. “So that’s why I’m gonna go to the library. For said magnanimous plans.”

“Merlin’s balls Baek, what you need is sleep - _Baekhyun get back here you dork!_ ” Chanyeol weakly protested, too comfortable in his couch to chase after Baekhyun while said person sleepily ambled his way out of the common room.

Chanyeol sighed but fell back against the couch with a yawn. Because he had his priorities figured out. The priorities did not include playing babysitter to a stubborn, vertically challenged Gryffindor. As he snuggled further into the couch, he had a distinct feeling he would regret this, which was letting Baekhyun out of his sight, but he’d climb that mountain when it came to it.

* * *

 

“No, Baekhyun. Desperation leads to disaster. Now repeat it with me. Desperation leads to disaster.”

Baekhyun vaguely registered two things which were a. he was definitely going insane if he was talking to himself like he was a voice extra on Dora (yeah he knew what that was) and b. his motor movements obviously did not agree with his words since he was currently holding the product of his desperation - a dusty old black book he would have _definitely_ ignored if it hadn’t fallen onto his head (speaking of which, oh yeah, c. the ringing pain in his head) like the second coming of Newton’s apple.

A voice that sounded like Chanyeol snickered in his head as he kept murmuring the select phrases to himself. Another voice, the more logical one, suggested he get the hell out of the library because he was in the restricted section.

He’d sleepily stumbled into the library at about ass o’clock in the morning, a time when his self preservation instincts were severely low (probably why the fear of Librarian Bom discovering him hadn't hit him yet) and his feet had led him straight to the restricted section. He didn't want to brag but it wasn't anything new. The restricted section was Baekhyun’s corner and seriously, what kind of a Gryffindor would he be if he shied away from a measly area of the library that had way too many...well, restrictions?

He then remembered his purpose and set to work, which involved research into love magic. He’d been writing adventure/thriller genres for so long that he was bound to hit a block. But unfortunately the block had turned out to be the size of the iceberg that sunk the freaking Titanic and on a whim, he'd decided to try out a new genre - romance. But because it was him, he couldn't conduct his research the conventional way and had insisted upon sneaking into the restricted section, holding a rather questionable book in his hands.

The dusty black book suddenly felt heavy in his hands and after a second of consideration, he muttered a ‘fuck it’, cast a quick silencing charm and tried to open the book. What was the worst that could happen? It wasn't like the book would suddenly light itself on fire or try to bite his hand off (read: the official care of magical creatures textbook).

Except it wouldn’t open.

Baekhyun squared his shoulders like ‘I'm not gonna let this puny book beat me’ and tried to pry it open with all the (non-existent) strength he could muster, but the effect it had on the book was a resounding zero. So the next fifteen minutes saw a sleep deprived Baekhyun attempting to open the ratchety old book in several innovative ways, which included persistently banging it against the table (he was dumb but at least he remembered the silencing charm) or stabbing it with his quill until he remembered that he was supposed to be wizard.

As in, he could do magic.

Once again, his inner voice (that still freakishly resembled Chanyeol’s) snickered. _Shut up_ , he grumbled in his head and set to work.

“ _Alohomora,_ ” To his disappointment, the book didn’t open.

Baekhyun briefly wondered why he was putting the effort he could have easily used to find another book on opening this particular one but maybe it was just the Gryffindor stubborness in him. Fortunately, the restricted section was a treasury of books that contained unlocking spells. After sifting through potentially life hazardous spells, complicated rituals that wouldn’t be plausible at the moment and other useless spells, he found three spells that would possibly open the book.

“ _Dunamis. Liberare. Emancipare_ ,” He cast them one after the other in quick succession, becoming more disheartened as each one failed to work.

This really wasn’t working out. He’d have to try out the two spells he found that weren’t exactly unlocking spells but they’d probably do the job. And get him into a shit ton of trouble. But since he was the type to bring down a house and think about its consequences later, Baekhyun went ahead with it anyway.

“ _Annihilare_ ,” He almost shouted, closing his eyes as he waited for the spell to literally destroy the surface of the book so it would open. The spell was something of a last resort since it tended to do more breaking than unlocking of a certain object. He tried not to think about how a certain Ravenclaw by the name of Do Kyungsoo (his _beloved_ potions partner that he _totally_ loved and certainly wasn’t bullied by on a regular basis) would annihilate him for even thinking of trying to ruin a book.

Baekhyun opened his eyes after five seconds, realizing that he didn’t hear a blast and found the book sitting atop the table in a safe condition, pre-blasting spell. Relief and disappointment flooded his veins at the same time.

“Well,” He muttered to himself, “Guess I’ll have to try an actual blasting spell. _Bombar_ -”

“- Mr. Byun, what in Merlin’s name are you trying to do at two in the goddamned morning?” A voice, overflowing with annoyance and reprimand, demanded, interrupting him mid spell and causing him to hit his back against the nearest bookshelf.

Groaning in pain, he quickly straightened himself and forced himself to look the librarian, Madame Park Bom in the eye, no matter how much the Chanyeol-voice in his head screamed at him to aim a stunning spell at her and make a run for it. Park Bom, despite being three inches shorter than him, was a formidable woman who, simply, would not be fucked with. It was most probably why she’d been given the position of librarian. Her biggest weapons were her eyeliner, her dark circles and most importantly, her death glare which tended to bring even Headmaster JYP to his knees, screaming to let him go (let’s just say it was something Baekhyun was _not_ supposed to witness). She ran the library with an iron fist and it was a miracle that he’d managed to sneak into the restricted section as many times as he could.

So with his heart in his throat, he blurted, “But I had a silencing charm on. H-how did you know?”

Madame Bom rolled her eyes (which he found slightly more terrifying than her glare). “Annihilare disables the silencing spell, genius. Didn’t you learn anything in class, boy?”

She then briefly got a glimpse of the book he was using. “Wait, why are you using that book or any book here for that matter without a professor’s permit?” She demanded and Baekhyun suddenly had nothing to say.

“Oh hello there, professor!” Kim Junmyeon said, flashing a blinding smile at the grumpy librarian and appearing out of nowhere like an angel without a halo. “Ah, you see, Baekhyun’s with me. He’s actually helping me look for a NEWT level book on Alchemic Herbs since it takes time. So kind of him, right?” He explained, still flashing his pearly whites and lying through his teeth. “And oh yes, here’s my professor’s permit. We’re with Professor Eunyoung.”

Madame Bom practically snatched the permit out of the seventh year Ravenclaw’s hands and proceeded to thoroughly inspect it as if she were the TSA, before handing it back to him. Baekhyun let out the breath he was holding. Madame Bom still looked suspicious but thank god for Junmyeon and his magical permit.

“You get out of it this time,” She ominously said and walked away.

When she was out of sight, Junmyeon threw Baekhyun with the most disappointed and disapproving face he could muster. It made him feel like dirt because _hell_ , sometimes Junmyeon acted like his real mother and he just didn’t want him to be disappointed in him, alright? Junmyeon crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows as though he was waiting for an explanation, and well, it all came tumbling out.

“I-I have a writer's’ block!” Baekhyun exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his hands. “I needed inspiration, ideas, something mind blowing to jerk me out of that block, you know what I mean? And like the restricted section was just there so it’s not my fault if my feet decided to walk right in-”

“Baekhyun-ah,” Junmyeon sighed. “It’s two in the morning. Just...just go to sleep. You’ve already lost too many house points and Gryffindor really can’t afford that.”

He took Baekhyun’s arm and promptly dragged him out of the library like he was a lost First Year but not before Baekhyun could grab the black book and hide it under his robe. If Junmyeon noticed his stomach suddenly shaped like a book, he ignored it because god forbid what Baekhyun was planning.

“Wait, hyung. How did you know it was me losing those house points?” He questioned Junmyeon once they were outside the library, recalling what the Ravenclaw had said. Junmyeon slung an arm around him to support him and explained. “Well, Chanyeol told Yixing who told me. Apparently you’ve been driving yourself insane with writer’s block and regularly skipping curfew?”

Baekhyun blinked. _What the fuck, Chanyeol?_

But since he was too tired to think of the logistics of this betrayal, a week’s worth of sleep deprivation catching up to him, he simply leaned his head against Junmyeon’s shoulder, who shot him a severely pained expression and a look that basically conveyed he’d done this way too many times. He clung to the seventh year head boy like a damn koala, hugging him and Junmyeon tolerated him all the way up to the entrance of the Gryffindor common room.

“I hope you know your password. Goodnight Baekhyun. No more wandering.” And with that Junmyeon left him in front of the Fat Lady’s portrait and Baekhyun sunk to the ground, far too tired to hold himself up.

“PASSWORD!” The Fat Lady shrieked and Baekhyun instantly flinched, covering his over sensitive ears. He proceeded to argue and yell at the Fat Lady because he was way too far gone at this point.

After the Fat Lady quietened, giving up on the nut case that was Byun Baekhyun at two in the morning, he racked his brain for the damn password and discovered that it had completely been wiped from his memory. Fan-fucking-tastic. With a sigh, he picked his hide off the ground and lugged his body to the Hufflepuff basement because unlike the stupid Gryffindor house, it didn’t need a fucking password. After tapping barrel number two from the bottom of the door to the rhythm of ‘Helga Hufflepuff’ (the entrance process had been ingrained in him after being doused in vinegar several times for getting it wrong) and Baekhyun headed straight for the boys dormitory.

Flinging the dorm door open, Baekhyun managed to rouse Kim Seokjin (sixth year’s male Hufflepuff house prefect) out of his sleep while Chanyeol and the rest of his roommates remained dead to the world. Seokjin, who at this point wasn’t even surprised to see Baekhyun in the dorm, saluted him in greeting (which he awkwardly returned) and went back to sleep. Baekhyun then decided to settle in right behind his giant of a best friend, whose soft snores were acting like a sleep medicine and slowly lulling him to sleep.

With one look at the dusty black book at the bed table, he turned around and draped an arm around Chanyeol’s waist.

He would get the damn book to open.

Some way or another.

* * *

 

Baekhyun was abruptly roused from his sleep when his pillow-slash-body warmer known as Chanyeol tried to untangle himself from the vice-like grip of Baekhyun’s limbs.

He whined and grumbled, trying to cling on to the taller Hufflepuff a little longer, but then Chanyeol started complaining about his ‘fucking tentacles’ being wrapped around the taller Hufflepuff like a ‘goddamn tiny squid with no chill’ and so, Baekhyun pushed him away, slightly offended at the thinly veiled diss towards his height. It was too early for anyone to be cursing this much and even earlier for someone to make fun of his height.

He was sensitive, okay?

Chanyeol, having gotten ready in record time, proceeded to drag Baekhyun’s carcass to the prefect’s washroom (Baekhyun didn’t know how his best friend had managed to wheedle the password out of Seokjin) since it was closer and forced him to get ready, immune to the Gryffindor’s grumbles and complaints.

Soon, they were making their way into the great hall for breakfast and Baekhyun quickly snuck the black book into his bag, not trying very hard to hide it from Chanyeol since the latter found it too taxing to be suspicious. Settling down at the Hufflepuff table, Baekhyun felt exponentially more tired than the night before, if that were possible. He ended up slumping tiredly against Chanyeol’s shoulder while the other ate his food with vigour and excitedly conversed with Amber Liu, a Korean-American Hufflepuff in their grade and the house prefect, about Pygmy Puffs or whatever it was that Hufflepuffs spoke about in their spare time.

“Yo, he okay?” Amber shot an amused look at Baekhyun, who at this point was so far gone that he was almost drooling on Chanyeol’s shoulder. The latter snickered in reply and threw an arm around his shoulder to steady him, causing Baekhyun to further snuggle into his side. Amber raised her eyebrows.

“He’s kind of idiotic, ignore him,” Chanyeol replied, and when Baekhyun swatted at his face, he quickly added, “Oh, and also really fucking sleep deprived.”

“Oh yeah?” She seemed further amused. “Late night activities?”

“Yep - ” But before he could answer her, Baekhyun slapped a hand over Chanyeol’s mouth and shot Amber an unimpressed look, “Cut it out, Amber. I _told_ you a million times that we weren’t dating or - or doing whatever it is that you’re implying!”

She raised her hands up in surrender and snickered obnoxiously while Chanyeol looked adorably confused at his best friend’s rapidly pinkening face.

“Wait. So by ‘late night activities’ did you mean - ” Chanyeol was interrupted again by Baekhyun, who was dragging him away from the gossip mongers known as the Hufflepuff table.

As he walked Chanyeol all the way to the North Tower for DADA (Chanyeol’s first class of the day), he wondered if the book needed to be opened in a specific location, or at a specific time of the day because it’s not like he had much to do today anyway -

The next second found Baekhyun almost faceplanting to the floor because he wasn’t paying attention to the small step he was supposed to take. And his face probably would have made contact with it if it weren’t for the fact that he seemed to be floating in the air, a mere inch above the ground. He found himself being gently lowered on his feet and the shock of his skull almost being cracked open left him gaping for about two minutes before he looked up to meet a concerned gaze (Kim Jongdae) and a familiar scowl (Do Kyungsoo).

“You should have just let him fall,” Kyungsoo remarked off-handedly and Baekhyun wondered who let Satan out of hell.

“Kyungsoo,” His best friend, Jongdae gently reprimanded. “Give him a break. He almost cracked his cranium.” And that concerned gaze was back, directed at Baekhyun again. As for Baekhyun - well, his eyes refused to move away from Jongdae’s face.

Kim Jongdae, to put it simply, was an angel sent to Earth, solely for the purpose of making his heart rate feel like he’d just played a whole match of quidditch after running a marathon.

Okay, maybe that was a tiny _bit_ of an exaggeration (Chanyeol disagreed) but his crush on Jongdae (since the end of fifth year, mind you, he’d only _admired_ him since the fifth year Christmas party, don’t listen to Chanyeol) didn't help in the slightest. Not that he hadn’t tried to get over it, but Jongdae didn’t help by looking like _that_ either - not with that cuteass curly hair, nor his stupid curled kitten lips, and especially not his eyes. And to top it off, like the whole world was against him, he was a total sweetheart. Total fucking boyfriend material. Kind Kim Jongdae, who despite being in Slytherin, did not possess a cold, blank-faced visage that was generally expected of the house...at least not _permanently_ (because let’s be honest, he was still a Slytherin and what were they without that signature face; Baekhyun was sure that it was something they perfected as a part of their initiation into the house). Instead, he gave out his smiles freely and boy, Baekhyun was so, so, entirely fucked.

And now, his fucking crush had saved his life. This was probably one of the rare times Baekhyun found himself speechless - and fuck he was _still gaping_.

...At least he could blame the fucking near-death encounter.

“Well, it’s not like that cranium has anything substantial inside it anyway,” Baekhyun first glared at Kyungsoo for making that statement and then at Chanyeol, who wasn’t even hiding his amusement. Assholes.

“Sorry Kyungsoo, I couldn’t hear you all the way from the deepest pits of hell,” He sassed back. “You know, where you belong.”

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow, so fucking unmoved, “That was weak, Byun. It’s like you’re not even trying.”

“I’m sleep deprived, leave me alone,” Baekhyun caved, unable to even deny it.

As hard as it was to believe, Kyungsoo and him actually happened to be friends, which was baffling for everyone else in their classroom since all they seemed to do was fight. Ever since they were partnered up for Potions this year, they had developed a sort of love-hate relationship that their respective best friends found absolutely hilarious.The Ravenclaw, used to doing his work alone, found himself being irritated with the slightest of mistakes Baekhyun made, while the latter retaliated by purposely messing up their assigned potions. But it was clear that Kyungsoo had more or less adopted the Gryffindor into his brood when someone else other than him had dared to insult Baekhyun’s potioneer skills and he’d damn near chewed them out.

And so they kept bickering until Jongdae intervened. “Hey,” he cut in, his eyes twinkling in mirth. “If you two are done annoying the shit out of each other, Channie and I have to get to class. We’re late.”

“Shit, I’m sorry for keeping you both! Go to class! Sorry!” Baekhyun said in one breath and Jongdae laughed. The sound went straight to his heart. He ignored Chanyeol giving him that damn knowing _smirk_ because he’d made the mistake of spilling his heart out to him when he’d gotten drunk on Firewhisky (accidentally at Chanyeol's family Christmas party last year) one fine day.

Just as Jongdae was about to turn around, Baekhyun decided on a spurt to man up. He wasn’t a fucking Gryffindor for nothing. So he gripped Jongdae’s wrist, looked him in the eye and simply said, “Thanks for not letting me crack my cranium.” Jongdae’s entire expression softened at as words and then -

“It is a nice cranium, Baekhyun. Try not to break it,” He winked, and then him and Chanyeol were running towards their DADA class.

Baekhyun tried not to feel like the curly haired Slytherin had tilted his entire axis. Were a few simple words and a wink enough to make his heart rate considerably speed up? The answer was apparently a resounding yes.

“Keep gaping like that and Jongdae will know soon enough,” Kyungsoo snarked, walking towards the moving staircases.

Baekhyun froze. Kyungsoo, of all people, couldn’t possibly know about his crush, could he? He wouldn’t put it past the Ravenclaw though. Great, now he would spend the entirety of the day not only frustrated by the book but also freaking out over whether Kyungsoo knew about his fat, giant crush on his best friend and if he’d spill the tea to said best friend or not. But the thing was… if Kyungsoo knew, there was a high chance that Jongdae had at least an inkling about it.

A chorus of _fuckfuckfuckfuck_ ran through Baekhyun’s head and he wondered if he could ever face the Slytherin again. And shit, they even had Astronomy practicals this evening. Maybe he should just drop out of Hogwarts and plan an expedition to the Sahara Desert.

“Die Kyungsoo,” He muttered at his potions partner’s retreating back. The nerd was probably going to hole himself up in the library until the next lesson (completely relaxed while he left him to deal with his mini freak out). Which, now also reminded Baekhyun that he had exactly thirty minutes to get back to his dorm and stare down the black book until a solution popped up at him. He just had to make sure his roommates were out of sight.

It was going to be a long day. He should be able to figure out something in the three out of five lessons he had free, right?

 

* * *

 

 Contrary to his assumptions, it was already Divination, the last and admittedly the most useless lesson in his schedule, and he’d made _zilch_ progress. He cursed himself for having taken great pains to skip the class when he couldn’t even accomplish anything out of it.

So he’d come out of the castle, under a tree near the Black Lake, and he’d been trying all sorts of spells and rituals with little to no success. Maybe he should just give it up.

_Give it up._

Sure. He could do that. Spend his time on actually getting over his block. Or maybe, you know, focus on getting his grades up. And then he’d be haunted by the goddamn book every waking hour, every day he’d go to class and every time he had a meal in the great hall. He’d dream about it, about what he could have accomplished if he hadn’t given up halfway and just opened it. It sounded insane. Drive himself insane if he didn’t open the book, or drive himself insane trying to open it. And he really didn’t know which one was better.

Give up opening the black book. Yeah right.

He’d been so antsy and fidgety throughout the day that Kyungsoo had glared at him across the classroom in Charms and even Jongdae couldn’t help but glance over in his direction with the barest hints of concern. Not that Baekhyun could tell since he was too busy staring at Jongdae’s face. Hell, even Chanyeol kept a good distance away from him. The blue haired Hufflepuff seemed to have a sixth sense which told him exactly when his best friend was up to no good and he conveniently chose exactly those moments to be out of reach. He knew that when stubbornness claimed Baekhyun, it was a lost cause.

But really, giving up was starting to sound more appealing since it was nearing five o’ clock and Baekhyun had even skipped lunch to embark on this pointless quest. He was tired, cranky, starving, frustrated and still sleep deprived - a melting pot of the worst possible combinations ever.

 _One last time,_ he told himself as he cast another Bombardo on the book, causing it fly backwards from the impact of the spell but it remained protected from the spell and remained as undamaged as before. Baekhyun’s eyebrows were twitching in anger and out of nowhere, he was reminded of this one muggle spell that a thief had used to open the door to a cave but the only word he could recall was a stupid sesame.

“Unfurl Sesame,” He still tried. No effect. Baekhyun found himself dropping to his knees and screaming. Beyond frustrated, he picked it up and ended up throwing it as far as he could, yelling, “WHY WON’T YOU FUCKING OPEN?!”

And guess fucking what? The book flung open to a random page mid air and dropped to the ground.

And Baekhyun’s jaw dropped to the floor.

“In the name of Merlin and Gandalf and every other old, white pot-bellied wizard to have ever fucking existed, all I had to do was say ‘OPEN’?!” He screams to no one in particular. “Un-fucking-believable.” He ranted to the open air using all the possible expletives he knew (Chanyeol would be proud) until he tired himself out.

It was one thing for a person to make him feel stupid but it was entirely another thing for an inanimate object to make him feel like he should just go right ahead and drop out of Hogwarts because the password simply happened to be the word ‘open’ (the creator of this book was either extremely smart or out of creativity). He was busting his brain and his remaining sanity over _nothing_.

When he made his way to pick up the book, he almost dropped it in shock.

_Cor Anima._

Baekhyun stared at the title for an entire minute before he even dared to try deciphering it. It was written in such an archaic cursive handwriting and the name echoed the words he’d heard in other spells - then, it had to be Latin. And Latin was not a language he was fluent at speaking but he was sub par at reading it so it took him almost ten minutes to simply decipher the words and figure out their meaning. When he did manage to figure it out, it made the writer in him cringe heavily because the Latin roughly translated to _‘Heart and Soul’_. The cringe was real. He could have come up with a thousand more that’d sound way better. It took him another fifteen minutes to go through what he presumed were a bunch of instructions for this particular spell or ritual.

It was a soulmate finding spell (Cometh and findeth thy soulmate else ye shall dieth aloneth, Baekhyun said to himself, snickering). It had to be because what else could a spell literally called ‘heart and soul’ point towards? And according to the instructions, it seemed like it was the wizarding equivalent of tinder. Only it was ten times more accurate and possibly a hundred times more riskier.

Which, of course, meant that he was going to try it out.

He’d never admit it but the spell hit deep into his heart (which was ironic). Seeing all of this soulmate finding crap had triggered something from the deepest crevices of his mind, something he’d never admit to himself, and had now latched itself to his memory, making it impossible for him to not try it out. He ignored the voice of reason that warned him against trying out archaic spells in a language he could only curse fluently in. But Gryffindors weren’t quitters. Especially when it came to dubious looking spells.

Well… would it really kill to have a soulmate?

Unless the said soulmate was a completely horrendous person, Baekhyun didn’t think it was a bad idea. It would eliminate all those stupid, unnecessary processes of talking, wooing and dating before one got to the actual relationship. Anything that got him to avoid the whole professing his feelings or hell, even communicating with the intent of romantic pursuits, he’d take it.

He tried not to think of how he just wanted a certain curly haired boy in particular to be his soulmate.

But what if _he_ didn’t want him? What if his soulmate completely hated him? Or worse. What if Baekhyun… didn’t have a soulmate at all? It was a joke he loved to make but it would really suck to be alone in life. It hurt too much to think about so Baekhyun closed the book and made his way towards the great hall for dinner.

He needed food before he could even think of proceeding any further with the spell.

 

* * *

 

When Baekhyun turned up at Great Hall with a smile bordering on maniacal, Chanyeol wordlessly made space for him and let him plop down next to him.

“Do I even want to know?” He asked the Gryffindor, who simply shook his head ‘no’ in reply and proceeded to attack the food laid out before him.

It really was a testament to how often Baekhyun frequented the Hufflepuff table (read: mostly due to the wild and completely incorrect assumptions from half the house that he was dating Chanyeol) that nobody batted an eye when he immediately started piling large chunks of everything available onto his plate. Getting archaic books to open was energy draining so he was justified in hogging all the food, alright?

When he was halfway through shoving an entire bagel into his mouth, he happened to glimpse at Chanyeol’s face which conveyed a mix of concern, incredulity, judgement and disgust. Baekhyun flipped him the bird because Chanyeol had no right to judge him at all, not when he’d watched him stuff an entire churro into his mouth and gargle it down with a disgustingly sweet concoction that would have given any normal person a brain freeze.

“So,” His best friend started with a cheshire smirk. “You have Astronomy practicals today with Jongdae. Are you planning on making a move today or I dunno, ever?”

He really had no tact.

“Keep your voice down,” Baekhyun hissed, and stuffed another bagel into his mouth. The other simply snickered and proceeded to look at something behind him with an expression that told Baekhyun he was intrigued. So when he turned around to see what it was, it was just his luck that he happened to make a split second of eye contact with his fucking crush when his cheeks looked like a bloated chipmunk and his mouth was stuffed with food.

Jongdae stared at him for two whole seconds before his shoulders started shaking and he let out a small laugh. Baekhyun was transfixed for about ten seconds before he realised that it was _him_ that was being laughed at so he swiftly turned away, his face red.

Suddenly remembering that Kyungsoo knew about his crush and that by extension Jongdae probably had inkling too, a small wave of fear swept through him. It seemed minuscule but Baekhyun was already as emotionally transparent as he could be - so much so that he really couldn’t hide things from an observant person like Jongdae - but he didn't want to bare his very soul to the guy too. He'd like to keep some things to himself, thank you very much.

“Chanyeollie…” Baekhyun said, placing his hands under his chin and turning up his aegyo to the max. The person in question raised an eyebrow at him.

“No.” Came Chanyeol’s response before Baekhyun could get in a word.

“You didn't even hear what I said though!”

“I don’t care. Whatever it is, leave me alone. I’m Switzerland, I have a ‘no engagement with trouble’ policy.”

“Bitch, Switzerland is the no man’s land. You’re describing USA’s earlier diplomatic isolationism policy.”

“How and why the fuck do you know that?” Chanyeol demanded, genuinely curious. Baekhyun shook his head, fond, “The hell do you mean, ‘How do _I_ know that?’ It should be more like me asking, how do _you_ know that. Besides, I read books, alright?”

Then, Baekhyun continued in a much quieter and softer voice, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable, “Anyways, hear me out, Yeollie. Please.”

Chanyeol’s expression softened and nodded, urging the other to continue.

“I need you to find out if Jongdae knows I’m hardcore crushing on him or not. Like ASAP because I’m going crazy here.”

Chanyeol threw his head down and groaned on the table surface after Baekhyun was done outlining his ridiculous request.

“I knew I shouldn’t have agreed. You just make things hard for me in life,” He weakly complained, knowing he was going to be doing it anyway because Baekhyun was nothing if not a stubborn squirrel and he’d be pestered by his emotional blackmailing for eternity.

“You love me though, so you’re gonna do it anyway.”

Chanyeol scoffed at the conviction the older Gryffindor’s words held but he was right. He was really gonna spy on Kim Jongdae, his DADA partner and his friend, just because Baekhyun activated his aegyo and practically begged him to. The things he did for his best friend. Said best friend then hugged Chanyeol tight before he rushed out of the Great hall, leaving him wondering why fuck he was operating on a permanent Speed Boost spell.

Little did he know about the disaster Baekhyun was about to walk into.

* * *

 

Fast forward to next week and Baekhyun would be found dining with grandparents during the Christmas break, talking animatedly while they watched him with a fond smile. His grandparents lived year-round in their summer-home, in the suburbs outside the city where one usually found more woodland and each plot of land had a lot of space. Baekhyun’s grandmother even had her own greenhouse in the back. The house got lonely without Baekhyun around, but his grandparents cherished whenever he was. The years were passing by faster than ever and their grandson wasn't a little boy anymore but it was nice to know that he still retained the innocence and fascination he had even at age five.

“So, Baekhyun-ah,” Grandpa Byun started, “Got any interesting news from school for us? You know, things you can’t share at school and you’d rather tell us?”

“He wants gossip. Of your love life.” Grandma Byun deadpanned, giving her husband a flat look.

Grandpa Byun, ever for the theatrics, threw his hands up in surrender and sighed. _So extra_ , Baekhyun thought as he and his grandma simultaneously rolled their eyes. (He did vaguely feel he was being a total hypocrite by doing so since the extra-ness ran in his blood but he ignored it). “I'm sorry I want to be involved in my grandson’s life unlike you and don't want him to feel like he's coming home to unresponsive grandparents, leaving him no outlet to express all the things probably bottled up inside him.”

“Are you done?” His grandma patiently asked.

“Gee thanks, honey. I really do need some fodder, Baekhyun-ah. Feed your old man some news.”

Baekhyun turned to his grandma, pleading with his eyes that she divert this gossip monger of a grandfather away from the topic of his dastardly (lack of) love life. She grabbed a napkin to dab at her mouth and shot him a smile that scared him a little, “It’s okay if you don’t want to share it with us, honey. No problem at all.”

Her smile was getting bigger and okay, what the fuck was going on?

She proceeded to put on her reading glasses and whip out a letter from Merlin knows where. He wouldn’t have known who had sent it if it weren’t for the distinct Crup family crest (that looked more like the mascot of a muggle children’s TV show honestly, than the pureblood family crest it was supposed to be) on the seal.

Indeed, it was the Park family crest.

 _Park Chanyeol, you better not be stirring up shit for me_ , he thought to himself. He hadn’t even helped him find out about Jongdae’s opinion on him!

“Chanyeol, that absolute dear, was swell enough to send us what’s going on with your life,” She continued speaking, probably completely aware of how Baekhyun was cussing Chanyeol out in his mind. He couldn’t believe that idiot had managed to let himself be tricked by his grandma into spilling gossip for them. “Apparently you’re potions partners with...Do Kyungsoo? Chanyeol says you’re friends but pretend to hate other, which is adorable. Oh, what’s this I see about a certain someone called Kim Jongdae? Why haven’t you mentioned him before?” Her eyes twinkled mischievously as she practically read out the entire letter.

Baekhyun groaned and hid his face in his hands. It was too late though. The tea was spilled.

“AH-HA!” Grandpa Byun exclaimed. “That’s the crush isn’t it? I knew it! Hell yeah.” He watched in horror as his grandparents high-fived each other in merriment.

“Ugh, why are you guys like this?” He whined. “Stop being so involved in my non-existent love life. It’s creepy.”

“I was sixteen when your grandma found me and...your father was sixteen too, when he found your mother.” Grandpa Byun started, hesitating a little while mentioning Baekhyun’s parents. Baekhyun carried the pain of being an orphan, sure, but he _had_ been three years old when they’d died in a muggle car accident and he could hardly remember anything about them. He loved his parents - but up to this day, his grandparents had never let him feel like his life was incomplete without his parents around. 

“I just really want to see you find your soulmate, Baekhyun-ah,” He added, and Baekhyun froze.

That was exactly what he had been planning to do over the holidays. Find his soulmate. Because as much as Baekhyun claimed to dismiss his grandpa’s idealistic claims, somewhere deep in his heart he really did believe that there was one person specially made for him. A person with whom he could skip the dating nonsense and move straight into a relationship with. Someone who’d understand his quirks and would love him for who he was.

...They couldn’t possibly be aware of the shenanigans he got to just to find this spell, did they?

Grandma Byun scoffed at her husband, “Bullshit. This soulmates nonsense doesn’t have any scientific proof and it completely dismisses the idea of free will. I don’t know why you still believe in this. You were a mind healer and a man of science, Joosung.”

Nope. He was safe. She hated this idea so much that she didn’t even entertain the possibility of her grandson carrying out a very spell to find a soulmate.

His grandparents have been having this argument for ages. His grandma, a potioneer, refused to accept anything that didn’t have scientific evidence and found comfort in the precise art of potion making. His grandpa, on the other hand, was a mind healer and while he was indeed a man of science, he was more open to the realm outside of it.

“Yoojung, you have no romantic bone in your body. You are my soulmate whether you believe it or not,” Grandpa Byun chuckled.

This started a fresh wave of arguments and Baekhyun quietly got up from the dining table, leaving his grandparents to bicker back and forth. He would admit, it was cute when you thought of it. An optimistic and romantic Byun Joosung being married to cynical and pragmatic Byun Yoojung. ‘Couple goals’ as Chanyeol liked to say. But being witness to the same rehashed argument got tiring pretty quick so Baekhyun retreated into his bedroom and grabbed the worn out black book from his bag.

The last few days before the holiday began had been busy, mostly because Chanyeol, that big friendly giant, hadn't left him alone even for a second (“Baek, we’ll be separated for three weeks so we have to spend as much time as possible!” He’d exclaimed, while Baekhyun struggled against his life-squeezing bear hug) and he'd clung on to him during the train ride as well. As a result, this was the first time he'd laid eyes on the actual contents of the book.

Reading through it, he realised that the ritual comprised of both a potion and a spell (nope, he was _not_ freaking out over it). The instructions were surprisingly simple to follow, even for him, a person who struggled to follow instructions in Potions. But then again he'd messed up a simple Pepper-Up Potion in second year and Professor Chaerin never failed to give him shit for it. Especially considering who his grandmother was.

Nonetheless, Baekhyun determined to see this through.

 _Frozen Ashwinder Egg, Moonstone, Rose Thorns, Pearl Dust, Peppermint_ \- he recognised these to be the ingredients used commonly in most love potions, or at least, he remembered them from how vaguely he’d scanned through this year’s potions textbook and retained some basic things. The others, however, like a Jobberknoll Feather and an Angel’s Trumpet Flower were unfamiliar. He could have asked his grandmother but that would raise suspicion… besides she'd probably look at him in disappointment and sigh at his lack of basic Potions knowledge.

He couldn’t exactly buy these from his grandma’s apothecary; she’d catch on instantly to what he was up to just by the ingredients - or worse, suspect him of making love potions and then receive a long lecture on how that wasn’t the way to go and that he shouldn’t get caught up in his grandfather’s words.

Still, most of these ingredients could either be stolen from the relatively large personal greenhouse his grandma maintained behind their large home, or from Professor Chaerin’s inventory at school. (Of course, he’d have to make sure that the professor didn’t specifically put in charms that detected _him_ since he was such a disaster in her subject.) So naturally - option one was the better choice, as long as he restocked his grandmother’s stash without her noticing. And that would be the difficult part, because his grandma was usually there...unless he grabbed the stuff whilst she was at work in her apothecary. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice if a small amount went missing amongst all the plants in the greenhouse.

The rest of it was all simple and dandy, except perhaps for two things. Firstly, he needed a blue moon. Baekhyun was pretty sure Professor Sora had mentioned one would be happening in January - and a quick check on his sky charts told him it would occur three days after Hogwarts reopened. Seemed like those astronomy lessons were useful for something after all.

The second thing was a very specifically designed talisman. A talisman that obviously couldn’t be purchased from a regular antique store in Diagon Alley because it required a fucking Rose Quartz gemstone. In other words, one of the harder-to-find gemstones in the world.

If he was anyone else, he'd have a hard time figuring out where to get this talisman and eventually, he'd completely give up on the spell.

It was a good thing his nan was Byun Yoojung, Potioneer extraordinaire, and owner of the most popular apothecary in Diagon Alley. And Byun Yoojung had contacts. Some… well, most of them were shady as hell but it got the job done.

...Not that he would tell his nan he was using her contacts of course, and neither would his contacts know that it wasn’t actually a job from his nan.

_I'm coming for you Rose Quartz._

* * *

 

He expected thugs and shady looking wizards when he arrived at Knockturn Alley. Hell, he'd even arrived with extra protection that included a…a spatula and a pepper spray…because past experiences told him they worked okay, and he's not allowed to use his magic yet, don't judge him.

The last people he expected to find here were the figures that suspiciously looked like his potions partner and his year long crush. He, at first, wondered if the universe loved playing mind games with him such that he’d go the extent of hallucinating his crush in the most random of places (although, his brain failed to take into account of why he’d specifically hallucinate Kyungsoo in a colourful christmas sweater and jeans because he swore that this was the first time he’d seen the Ravenclaw wear anything that wasn’t his school uniform or his ugly formal clothing).

Just before he could sneak into an alleyway to avoid them or cast a disillusionment spell, the pair turned back and caught a glance of Baekhyun, who had frozen in the middle of the street.

Jongdae smiled wide, forcibly dragging a scowling Kyungsoo in his direction and fuck, would his stupid heart stop racing?

“Hey Kyungsoo, hey Jongdae!” Baekhyun practically screamed with fake enthusiasm and immediately regretted it. He was vibrating with nervous energy appearing from his desperation to not look suspicious, his foot tapping against the floor and his hands not knowing what to do. Could he be anymore obvious? He thought he imagined Jongdae trying very hard to keep the smile on his and not cringe at his sudden increase in volume, but clearly Kyungsoo remained stone faced and unimpressed.

“Hey….Baekhyun. What are you doing here?” Jongdae then carefully asked as though he was assessing him, which in turn made him more nervous and fidgety.

“Uh, you know, buying ingredients for um… stuff,” He explained poorly, letting out the phoniest laughter ever. “Y’all know how it is, right?”

“Right.” Kyungsoo deadpanned.

“Hey! I could totally come to Knockturn to buy things. What, is it only a thing that you guys do?” Baekhyun defended, and oh - _was Jongdae checking him out?_

Baekhyun swallowed and tried to pretend like he was meant to be here. But Jongdae and Kyungsoo were still stood in front of him waiting. 

...Oh, Baekhyun was totally doomed, wasn’t he?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's how it all starts. Honestly, Baekhyun should've never touched that book... I hope you guys enjoyed reading this one~~! The next chapter will be up tomorrow, hopefully! - Miche xx
> 
> Info: Professor Eunyoung (Herbology) - Cheetah (Rapper); Professor Chaerin (Potions) - CL (formerly of 2NE1); Librarian Park Bom - Park Bom (formerly of 2NE1).
> 
> Question of the Hour from Niche: Can anyone guess which houses the other EXO members are in? The ones who guess right will receive a shout out in the next chapter~


	2. When You’re Bad At Black Ops | Jongdae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jongdae doesn't believe Baekhyun for one second, no matter how cute Baekhyun's attempts to hide his intentions may be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys~~
> 
> Thanks for all your kudos! The question from the end notes from the previous chapter still stands, so feel free to leave a comment!  
> This chapter was written by me, and edited by Niche. This one's relatively shorter because, you know, plot. So I hope you like it!
> 
> Love, Miche xx

Jongdae called bullshit.

He didn’t believe him for one second, letting his eyes wander over Baekhyun’s slightly nervous form, hands fidgety and foot tapping. When his eyes returned to meet Baekhyun’s, the boy’s cheeks had turned a faint red and he looked around nervously.

He was _definitely_ up to no good.

“I’m just surprised you would come so far to buy something for your grandma,” Kyungsoo commented instead when Jongdae knew his best friend was extremely tempted to say _yes, it’s only our thing, now please fuck off, thank you_. “You’re not exactly blending in...even a two-year old can tell this isn’t your scene.”

“Stop pretending like it’s yours, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun returned with a small awkward grin, before clearing his throat, “Actually, I was going to buy some potentially dangerous ingredients for her - she’s a potioneer, you know that.”

“Doesn’t your grandmother own the really popular apothecary in Diagon?” Kyungsoo questioned.

“She sells _potions_ , Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun emphasised like he couldn’t believe had to tell him this. Byun’s Potions Suppliers was very-well known, not to mention one of the only two stores that sold ready-made potions in Diagon Alley. “Not potion ingredients.”

“Then let’s all go together,” Jongdae inserted, and both Baekhyun and Kyungsoo turned to him with equally horrified looks. Ignoring that with a sly grin, he elaborated, “Soo here has to go to the apothecary to get equally dangerous and potentially illegal ingredients anyway, so come along with us! That’s where you’re headed anyway, right?”

“...Right,” Baekhyun cheered, but sounded totally unconvincing, “That’s where I’m headed anyway!”

“Great,” Jongdae nodded, sounding satisfied that he could keep an eye on him. He ignored the pricking of a glare on the side of his head and continued, “Let’s get going. We shouldn’t stay here too long.”

And he proceeded to lead the way to the apothecary, wanting to snicker at the way Kyungsoo and Baekhyun sighed simultaneously and then sent each other a wary glance. One would think the two weren’t potions partners with the way they acted sometimes.

“So…” Kyungsoo drawled a beat later as they passed by a dingy shop with a suspicious-looking sign for doppelganger spells hanging outside it. “What ingredients are you going to pick up anyway? For what potion?”

Jongdae turned his head to look at Baekhyun, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere than here, “Um, I don’t really have a plan? I’ve seen my nan’s collection, I’ll just get something she doesn’t have...she’ll like it either way.”

“This is why you do terrible in Potions -” Kyungsoo began, only for Baekhyun to butt in, “I’m not _terrible_ , how could you?” But Kyungsoo carried on like he hadn’t spoken, “You never plan.”

Jongdae, who’d been pretty passively watching Baekhyun’s behaviour, spoke up, “Aw, I’m sure Baekhyun’s not that bad, Soo.”

Baekhyun’s cheeks quickly adopted a faint red again, but he turned to Kyungsoo, hitting him lightly, “See, you should have some faith! I know what I’m doing!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes at his dramatics, simply stepping past him to get to the door of the shady apothecary. The apothecary was somewhere Jongdae had been more than enough times with Kyungsoo - who was practically in his natural habitat here. But right now, his main focus was a certain Byun Baekhyun.

Unlike Kyungsoo, Baekhyun was clearly uncomfortable here, not that Jongdae could blame him. He himself didn’t exactly feel entirely at home here, even though he was a regular visitor. Baekhyun, despite his feelings, flitted through the shop with a cute curiosity that Jongdae had seen in the other’s eyes even during Charms classes. He peered at the bottles of medicinal herbs and poisonous plants, and Jongdae joined him at the rack quietly. When Baekhyun turned, he jumped, not having realised Jongdae had approached him. He let out a breath, “Wow, don’t scare me like that, Merlin.” He backed away, returning to the rack, and pulled out a medium-sized bottle of Angel’s Trumpet, “This is poisonous, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Jongdae recalled it from his old potions book. “It’s really rare too.” He gazed back at Baekhyun, “Are you thinking of buying it?”

“Yeah, why not?” Baekhyun bit his lip, and Jongdae looked away, gaze back at the rack of ingredients. “I...think I’ll get just one more ingredient. These things ain’t cheap.”

“Are you sure it’s not just you?” Kyungsoo called, walking up to them, armful of exotic plants stuffed in their respective safety bottles. Baekhyun narrowed his eyes and plucked a bottle of silverweed straight from the pile in Kyungsoo’s hands in retaliation, marching over to the counter and buying it (and ignoring Kyungsoo’s indignant screeching) with a simple thanks in Kyungsoo’s direction.

Jongdae was impressed. No wonder Baekhyun was in Gryffindor.

Baekhyun quickly paid for the two bottles, slipping them into his bag, and then turning to Jongdae and Kyungsoo, “So, I have to go now, but I’ll see you two back at Hogwarts!” He quickly sent both of them a small smile, “Have a great Christmas and happy New Year!” And he was stepping out the door without waiting for a response.

Kyungsoo and Jongdae exchanged a look of surprise, before Kyungsoo shrugged, “Dae, help me grab another bottle of -”

But Jongdae was certain Baekhyun wasn’t leaving so soon, and was determined to find out what he was upto. He himself wasn’t quite so sure why he was curious, but the prankster in him demanded him to follow and find out what mischief Baekhyun was definitely getting into.

And that is what let him cut off his best friend mid-sentence, “Sorry, Soo, I have to step out for a few minutes. Stay right here, I’ll be back soon! You’ll be okay right?”

And he dashed out, not waiting for Kyungsoo to yell after him.

Just as he stepped out of the store, he spotted Baekhyun rounding the corner of the street, and he sighed in relief that Baekhyun hadn’t seen him leave. He sprinted down the alley, ignoring the strange lady in a mask that reminded him of the 1800s. Just as he rounded the corner, he found Baekhyun entering one of the most well-known stores in Knockturn Alley - Borgin and Burkes.

What would someone like Baekhyun be doing down there?

Borgin and Burkes was an antique store, sure, but a lot of the antiques they sold were related to dark magic. And if Baekhyun, for some reason, had turned to dark magic - it rang some serious bells in Jongdae’s mind. So he quietly snuck to the clothes store across the antique shop, where he could get a clear view of what Baekhyun was doing. The clothing store was clearly for people with a taste for darker clothes, but Jongdae didn’t mind, slipping on a black boater hat and black sunglasses even though Knockturn Alley looked like a place that didn’t get much sunlight.

Baekhyun, to his credit, didn’t look all that scared being in that store, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, and what Kyungsoo had said earlier came back to his mind. On the inside, Jongdae agreed with Kyungsoo. He didn’t really believe that this was Baekhyun’s scene either, but it sure looked suspicious. And looks could be deceiving.

Baekhyun seemed to be in an intense discussion with the man at the counter, before the man slid an ivory box towards him. From the inside, he slipped out a silver pendant, too small for Jongdae to see clearly.

Jongdae’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Baekhyun was...jewellery shopping?

No, it had to be something more important than that, naturally. Baekhyun however, simply inspected it, and after he was seemingly satisfied, he paid, slipping the ivory box into his bag. Not soon after, he left the shop and didn’t make any more stops before leaving the alley.

Jongdae, on the other hand, was left with more questions than answers.

 

* * *

 

Jongdae didn't forget about the whole Baekhyun debacle, but it had slipped to the back of his mind soon after, having visited back home for Christmas.

He'd spent the evening on strained polite gestures and courtesy wishes, half having admitted to himself that he was truly only there for his younger brother. His relationship with his parents had been strained since a year ago, after their disagreement with his preferred career choice and now for most holidays, he stayed with Kyungsoo. He didn't hate his parents, he couldn't, but he couldn't stand the environment in the house they created either. But at least over Christmas Eve, it seemed to be going better than he'd expected. They hadn't mentioned anything about it to him all day, his mother softly asking how school had gone and his parents just all around happy to have him back in the house.

His family was important to him, which is why it had hurt when they hadn't respected his choice, but he was willing to be civil if they were.

Jongin, his brother and a Fourth-year Gryffindor, had been overjoyed to have him back in the house for dinner that evening, telling him all about what he had gotten up to recently. And the next morning, when they opened the gifts, Jongin had been delighted with Jongdae's present of a music record he'd picked up back in Diagon Alley with Kyungsoo.

But when Jongdae had opened his present from his parents, he'd been severely disappointed. In them.

They’d given him a wizarding professions guide, and another book on why being an auror was a good thing.

He'd left the books right there on the couch and stormed out of the house, tired and frustrated by their passive-aggressive way of dealing with the situation. And he'd thought that they'd been doing so well.

He returned to Kyungsoo’s house, still dressed in his pajamas and feeling his eyes filling with frustrated tears.

Kyungsoo had taken one look at him and sighed, pulling him into a hug right on the doorstep and offered comfort cuddles on the sofa. Kyungsoo’s mom had been on the hot chocolate squad. Jongdae had felt horrible much later on, when he'd realised he’d interrupted the family Christmas morning time but Kyungsoo's mother had softly reassured him that he was just as much family, prompting another batch of sad tears that went unmentioned.

Kyungsoo tended to fret over Jongdae more at times like this, a direct reaction to Jongdae’s much more emotionally unstable state. Generally, nothing could really shake Jongdae, skilled in the art of hiding his true feelings, but times like these made him transparent, and Kyungsoo never uttered a word against him, afraid of breaking an already fragile Jongdae.

Jongdae on the other hand, was more than happy to move past that when New Year came along, sending a letter to his family without a mention of what had happened at Christmas and another far more personal letter to his brother.

By the time school rolled round, Jongdae was back in good spirits (at least, as much as he could be) and teased Kyungsoo all the way to Kings Cross and Hogwarts. But back at school, one look at a familiar redhead - a certain Byun Baekhyun - had been enough to make him feel like a bucket of ice water had been poured over his head, reminding him of what he'd seen in Knockturn Alley.

Suddenly feeling far more alert, he vowed to keep an eye on the boy. It didn't really help that said boy was a Gryffindor in this case, since Jongdae was a Slytherin and that made his job much harder than it needed to be.

He watched as a jug of pumpkin juice nearly fell out of Baekhyun’s hand, narrowly rescued by quick reflexes of the guy sitting across him.

Jongdae rolled his eyes. Right, and this guy was supposedly involved in dark magic.

As if.

He turned to Kyungsoo (who was sat at the Slytherin table too, actually, after being snuck there by Jongdae back in second year and ever since Kyungsoo had sent everyone who'd argued a Slytherin-worthy withering glare, he'd been accepted in good spirit as a fellow of the Slytherin house) and leaned his head on his shoulder, “Ah _wae_.”

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow, “What now?”

“They don't have any chocolate cake for dessert today.”

Kyungsoo sent him a deadpan stare, but didn't enlighten him with a response, choosing to go back to eat.

So naturally Jongdae decided to bother him.

But over the course of the next two days, Jongdae noticed some weird things going on with Baekhyun.

Firstly, Baekhyun was restless, distracted even, enough for even Chanyeol, Baekhyun’s best friend and Jongdae’s DADA partner, to point it out during Charms, of all classes. If there was one class Baekhyun listened to - it would be Charms, or at least, that's what Jongdae had learned over the past three months that they'd had classes together.

Now he watched as Baekhyun was barely listening, lost in his own thoughts and ignoring Chanyeol.

And then there was Baekhyun in Astronomy. Baekhyun was usually quiet in Astronomy, respecting the night sky with a silent passion. But during the last practical he'd been fidgety, and anxious, and it made Jongdae nervous just watching him. And the way he had frozen up at Professor Sora’s casual mention of the next night being a blue moon had been strange to say the least.

To be fair, if he was getting involved in dark magic, would he make his restlessness so obvious?

Clearly though, something was going to go down during the blue moon - or Baekhyun’s reaction to it wouldn’t have been so random.

And Jongdae was determined to find out.

On Tuesday morning, he took DADA as an opportunity to talk to Chanyeol without the presence of Baekhyun being there to see if he knew what was up with the Gryffindor boy.

“Channie,” Jongdae greeted with a grin as he sat down next to the Hufflepuff. “How was your break?”

“Pretty good,” The boy looked cheery as usual, perfect teeth on display. “Yoora noona wasn’t here for break, but Jimin and I had a lot of fun.” He moved his bag to the side, “And I met up with Baekhyun a couple of times too.”

“Looks like you had a pretty interesting holiday,” Jongdae hummed before casually throwing out a stick. “Actually, I bumped into Baekhyun once too!”

“Oh really?” Chanyeol’s eyebrows raised in surprise, “That _ass_ \- he didn’t mention it to me!”

Ah, so Baekhyun hadn’t mentioned his escapade in Knockturn. And then the plot thickens.

“I’m hurt,” Jongdae pouted. “Clearly it wasn’t important enough for him to mention.”

“ _Please_ ,” Chanyeol snorted. “I’m the one he always rants to about -” Chanyeol paused as if he thought better about what he was about to say, and then changed the topic, “Anyway, where did you meet him?”

“I was with Kyungsoo at that time, actually, and we were going to an apothecary in the Alley, and well, we bumped into him there,” Jongdae revealed. “He was going Christmas shopping for his grandmother, so he came with us to the apothecary.”

Now if Chanyeol did know something and was just hiding it, he’d mention something about Knockturn.

“I can’t believe he didn’t tell me,” Chanyeol made a face. “And he’s been acting weird since yesterday too - I mean, he’s always weird, you know? He’s always running around for ideas and stuff - but he’s weirder than _usual_. Knowing Baek, it can’t be a good thing.” He shook his head.

...That was easier than Jongdae had expected. Clearly, Baekhyun hadn’t told Chanyeol anything, and as far as Jongdae could tell, he didn’t seem to be lying either.

“Aren’t you worried then?” Jongdae side-eyed the other.

He didn’t look that concerned considering he’d just claimed that Baekhyun was supposedly weirder than usual. But Chanyeol only shrugged in response, “It’ll pass. Whatever it is, I’m sure he’s not doing anything illegal.”

He paused, considering that statement, “Well, not completely illegal anyway.”

_Right._

At Jongdae’s raised eyebrow, he waved off, adding, “Eh, he’ll tell me sooner or later I guess, so it’s fine.”

For the rest of the class, Chanyeol didn’t mention another word about Baekhyun (unless it was to diss him), rather talking about what him and his younger brother got up to during the holidays.

Wednesday evening Jongdae caught a hint of Baekhyun down in the Great Hall for dinner, having arrived early to ensure he didn’t miss the boy. Baekhyun did arrive early - within ten minutes - and he practically dry-swallowed everything without a pause to chew. And he seemed to skip dessert too. Then, he was scurrying out of the Great Hall at the top speed of 180 km/h. Jongdae saw Chanyeol’s confused gaze follow Baekhyun out from the Hufflepuff table too, before he seemed to think better of it. Jongdae wished he was that convinced too, but after what he’d seen during the Christmas break, he needed a reassurance, unlike Chanyeol.

He got up after slowly finishing his dessert, and quickly made his way across the hall to the Hufflepuff table. He placed his hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder, getting the blue-haired boy to turn and look at Jongdae with surprise, “DaeDae, what’s up?”

Ignoring the not-cool nickname Chanyeol had presented him with at the start of sixth year a few months ago when they’d become DADA partners, he pointed towards the doors, “Um, hey, I saw Baekhyun run out, is everything okay?”

“Uh, yeah, should be,” Chanyeol shrugged. “He’s just been struggling the past few days with his writer’s block, is all.”

“I didn’t know he wrote,” Jongdae paused, taken aback for a second. But Chanyeol grinned, “He’s actually a great fucking writer.”

“I’ll ask him sometime then,” Jongdae nodded. He hoped that whatever was going on was linked to Baekhyun’s supposed writer’s block, but he was going to get that confirmed.

“Did you need him for something?” Chanyeol asked him after a beat. Jongdae sent him an easy smile, clearing his expression, “Yeah, I just needed to talk to him about Astronomy, that’s all. I was hoping I could during dinner, but he kinda ran away, so I figured I’d go find him.” He looked around before turning to Chanyeol with a small pout, “Any idea where he could be?”

“Maybe the library?” Chanyeol suggested, and then he made a face, “If not there, try the Divination classroom - he always did say he got good inspiration there.”

“Thanks Channie,” Jongdae sent him a blinding smile, and then turned to leave, sending a brief nod and wave towards Kyungsoo who was watching him with a blank expression. He’d tell Kyungsoo later anyway.

He made his way out of the hall and paused. It was unlikely Baekhyun went anywhere where a teacher could find him - which canceled out the library as an option and the divination classroom. And if the blue moon was as important as he’d made it out to be, he’d have to be somewhere he could see it - which made the astronomy tower and obvious choice. But classes could happen after dinner for a different year, and that meant he wouldn’t be there either. It was still too cold to go outside, so that canceled the grounds and the quidditch pitch. But that still left so many places he could be.

It was times like this that Jongdae really hated the size of the Hogwarts Castle.

And then he slapped his forehead in realization. He didn’t know where Baekhyun was, but all he had to do was ask the room of requirement for a passage to wherever he was.

Jongdae ran off, sprinting up seven staircases and once again cursing the founders for creating a castle of this size. By the time he was in front of the wall that hid the room, he was panting and chest heaving.

“Merlin,” He coughed as he leaned against the wall. “Never again. Baekhyun can go to the dark side for all I care.”

Regaining his breath, he pushed off the wall, and walked past it three times, clearly thinking about a passage to the room Baekhyun was in. When a door appeared, he quickly opened it and found himself in a stone-walled corridor, with a single door on the other end. He ran across, stepping out on the other side.

He was surprised when he arrived in the sixth floor corridor, right outside classroom 6A (the Ancient Runes classroom). But when he peered inside, it was empty, so he moved onto 6B and found it empty too.

He knew classroom 6C was used for something too, but he wasn’t certain, and when he peered through the window, he was surprised to find Baekhyun in the middle of some sort of magic ritual.

Before he knew it, he was barging into the room, door slamming into the wall on the side and startling Baekhyun enough to drop the necklace he'd seen before straight onto the ground and out of the magic circle (that was drawn poorly with chalk - where’d he get that from anyway?). Baekhyun pulled out his wand for protection purely on instinct, and if it wasn’t a totally stupid thing to do, Jongdae would’ve commended him for his reflexes.

“Baekhyun!” Jongdae’s voice was sharp but alarmed, “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Ah, ha,” Baekhyun let out an awkward laugh at being caught, “Funny story actually - wait, what are you doing here?!”

Before Jongdae could reply, Baekhyun looked down at the magic circle, which had been glowing faintly before, but now had totally died down, “Shit, the spell’s ruined!”

“What spell?!” Jongdae asked, now wary. “Are you doing some dark magic shit?!”

He pulled his own wand out of his pocket, and Baekhyun waved him off, “No, not dark, just dangerous - _crap._ ”

“ _What?!”_ Jongdae repeated at Baekhyun’s sudden italics.

“You interrupted me mid-way, genius!” Baekhyun scowled and well, Jongdae wasn’t even a bit sorry. “Let’s just hope I can do this again.”

“Um, if it’s dangerous, you should probably just leave it -” Jongdae tried to warn, cut off as Baekhyun bent over to pick up what Jongdae now realised was a talisman he’d seen Baekhyun buy at Knockturn Alley. But as soon as Baekhyun picked it up, the circle glowed a bright white once more, and instinctively, Jongdae rushed forward to pull Baekhyun right out of the magic circle, blocking him with his body as the light seemed to turn almost blinding and then pulsate once before it faded away.

“...Was that supposed to happen?” Baekhyun asked after a beat of silence, and even though Jongdae knew he was talking to himself, he returned a sarcastic retort, “How am I supposed to know? I told you not to touch the damn thing.” His eyes narrowed at Baekhyun as he let him go and put some space between them, “What were you doing anyway? And don’t you dare run away without telling me.”

“Of course I’m not gonna run away, I’m a fucking Gryffindor, give me some credit,” Baekhyun sniffed, and Jongdae rolled his eyes, “Yeah, I can see all that dumb courage is going well for you -”

Baekhyun made a face, and then in a small voice, “...You’re gonna laugh.”

“Well it’s either that or me setting your ass on fire for doing something potentially dangerous,” Jongdae bargained easily, swallowing his laughter at Baekhyun’s ridiculously offended expression.

“I was - trying out a soulmate spell,” Baekhyun revealed, voice barely over a whisper, and Jongdae froze, unsure if he was hearing correctly.

“A soulmate spell?” Jongdae repeated, incredulous.

Baekhyun nodded, and then turned bright red, “It’s not what you’re thinking...it was for my story -!”

“Who performs the spell if they’re using it for their story?!” Jongdae cut in exasperatedly. “And you said it was dangerous!”

It was silent for about two seconds before Jongdae added, frowning, “And ancient spells, because I assume it is, since you know, the big ass magic circle that you’ve drawn terribly by the way, shouldn’t be stopped half-way, there’s probably a consequence for that.”

“I’m not an idiot Jongdae, I read the instructions and stuff in the book before doing it!”

“You just literally asked if the light show was supposed to happen after you picked up the damn necklace!”

“It’s a _talisman,_ excuse you, and okay, sure I didn’t know, but that doesn’t mean it’ll have a negative consequence! The magic I put in it is probably just being re-transferred to the surroundings.”

“...Right,” Jongdae totally didn’t believe it, but well...it could be true. It felt too easy though - still, he’d never studied the intricacies of the magic of love, and he wasn’t going to anytime soon. It was too unpredictable. “I really hope you know what you’re doing Baekhyun.” He eyed the magic circle. “But I don’t recommend trying that again.”

“Yeah, I’m not doing this again, don’t worry,” Baekhyun, luckily, seemed to agree with him. “Speaking of, what are _you_ doing here?”

It was Jongdae’s turn to be embarrassed as he admitted, “Well I could tell you were lying back in Knockturn Alley, so I may or may not have followed you. I saw you get that talisman and then later I was wondering if you were involved in some dark arts, but I couldn’t really believe it. But when we came back to school, you were acting really suspicious, so I had to make sure. And I mean, I wasn’t wrong - you were up to no good technically.”

Baekhyun had a small smug grin on his face, “How sweet of you to be so concerned.”

“That sounded way too sarcastic for me to believe you,” Jongdae laughed good-naturedly. “Let’s go now.”

“I have to rub out the circle first,” Baekhyun inserted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, and Jongdae sighed, “Right, quickly. Be careful.”

He watched as Baekhyun used his shoes to rub out the chalk, following the lines in an order as he rubbed them out. Once he was done, the two set out of the classroom, and Jongdae ensured to walk him back to the Gryffindor Tower. Just as he turned to leave, Baekhyun called after him, “Hey, Jongdae?”

“Hmm?” Jongdae raised an eyebrow, and Baekhyun looked down at the ground before clearing his throat, “Um, thanks for your concern - I know it wasn’t for me personally but more about what I was doing - but still.”

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Jongdae sent him a genuine smile, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll always be around to stop you from going into the dark arts.”

Baekhyun pinked slightly, but he continued softly, “What - what would you have done if I was involved in the dark arts?”

“Are you planning too?” Jongdae tilted his head, and Baekhyun shook his head. “Then you don’t have to worry about it.”

“As if that’s not enigmatic.”

“I can’t reveal all my cards to you,” Jongdae laughed, before he nudged Baekhyun lightly, “Go to sleep, Baekhyun, it’s late.”

“Good night, Jongdae,” He heard as he turned and walked away, heading to the dungeons.

Jongdae just hoped that Baekhyun was right and that there would be no terrible consequences of what had happened today.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's that. 
> 
> Author Niche would like to add that she loves how sneaky and Slytherin Jongdae is. Our boys Chanyeol and Baekhyun don't stand a chance. And ah, will one ever tire of the Kyungsoo-Baekhyun 'rivalry'?
> 
> The next update will be on the 21st and 22nd of Jan. Our update schedule is every two weeks, and we'll release two chaps together as we did yesterday and today. 
> 
> Stay tuned!
> 
> Love, Miche xx


	3. Catching Creatures Wasn’t In The Job Description | Chanyeol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chanyeol has to resort to bribery to gain a feline's approval and Baekhyun ruins his well made progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Fanfic Readers, 
> 
> We're back with the new chapter as promised! I apologise for the delayed update though. Thank you for all the love and support, and honestly Miche and I are really surprised at the amount of people reading this. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy diving into Chanyeol's head in this chapter!
> 
> Dying over Chanyeollie's cuteness,  
> Niche

Chanyeol loved animals. Specifically, he had an affinity for adopting dangerous animals that were definitely _not_ meant to be domesticated by any means.

So, it didn’t surprise anybody when an eleven year old, fresh faced Park Chanyeol with innocent doe eyes and elf-like ears had been trying to sneak in a bloody _bearded dragon_ into the Hogwarts express. Of course, he’d gotten caught (blame Kim Seokjin for being terrified of a tiny lizard and his earth shattering screech for alerting the groundskeeper) and had had to return the precious creature to his older sister, a highly amused Park Yoora.

And predictably, it had left a gaping hole in the young boy’s heart (“Merlin, why do you have to be so dramatic about it?” Baekhyun had interrupted his narration at this point, rolling his eyes. Chanyeol had shushed him, “Baek, I was emotionally attached to Lizzy, alright, leave me alone and let me finish.”) and he’d been inconsolable for the entirety of the train ride to Hogwarts.

But as the muggle saying went: “In each loss, there is a gain.” And true enough, Chanyeol had gained his first ever friend in a small, adorable boy called Byun Baekhyun. He had been at least a head shorter than him then too and had awkwardly consoled a teary-eyed Chanyeol in the wake of his loss. Baekhyun, with puffy cheeks and so much hair that it almost covered his eyes, reminded him of Robert Richmond III, his pet hedgehog back home. And so:

“H-hey...did you know, you’re like a hedgehog?” He’d blurted out of nowhere, to the extremely baffled boy, through a snot filled nose and a waterfall of tears, while the other had been extremely affronted but also slightly concerned for this mess of a boy.

Of course, the taller boy had been extremely embarrassed by the time they’d reached the Great Hall but thankfully, Baekhyun hadn’t done or said anything that implied judgement. After that, the two of them had stuck to each other like glue, despite the latter still insisting on the former’s frankly _offensive_ comparison to the tiny creature of the night -

(Chanyeol tried not to be too smug when Baekhyun’s Patronus had turned out to be a fucking hedgehog, much to the other’s chagrin).

\- But really, there couldn’t be a more befitting description for his Gryffindor best mate.

Hedgehogs were nocturnal creatures and because of that, they tended to be sleepy during the day, often spacing out, and lashing out at those who dared to disturb their rest time. They were natural homebodies, always bonding and seeking out affection from other hedgehogs but were also natural recluses, who preferred their own space. Not to mention, skittish when out of their comfort zones and cuddly whenever they felt secure. Most of all, their possessiveness. If all of this didn’t scream _Byun Baekhyun_ , a nocturnal creature and a reclusive extrovert, he didn’t know what did.

And so, with his hedgehog-like nocturnal characteristics, Baekhyun was a night owl, his mind being the most active during nighttime. But that also meant that a regular sleep schedule didn’t exist in his dictionary.

Chanyeol knew that most creative people had fucked up sleep schedules and Baekhyun was no different. He was always waking up at odd hours to scribble down his ideas, staying up till unholy hours to finish writing _just one more page_ , and surviving solely on sugar and caffeine to get through the lessons of the day. His regular sleep deprivation combined with his ability to zone out at odd times made him clumsier than usual. Even then, he was nowhere near as bad as Park Jimin (Chanyeol’s Gryffindor younger brother in the fifth year), who could literally trip on air.

However, in the past couple of days, Baekhyun may as well have switched souls with Jimin because it seemed like his brother’s misfortune had been quadrupled and shoved into the older redhead’s body.

Not only had he been tripping on practically _nothing_ multiple times a day, but it was also the fact that his affinity for disaster in all of his classes had increased tenfold. Potions, for instance. He never thought that his best mate could get any worse at that subject. But when he’d turned up a little early to his Potions class to walk Baekhyun and himself to their Transfigurations lesson, he’d witnessed the redhead _almost_ drop a cauldron full of what looked like an incorrectly made Draught of the Living Death on Professor Chaerin - before the Professor had quickly acted and levitated the cauldron out of his hands.

It was the same day Chanyeol had unsympathetically found amusement in the fact that Baekhyun had been prohibited from not only the supply closet but also from making Potions for at least a week. With an additional seasoning of two detentions.

And while he’d thought nothing of this, it had happened in Charms too and that was Baekhyun’s best subject. Just yesterday, the entire class had stared at Baekhyun like he’d been possessed by a dark wizard when he’d just upped and fucking nonverbally _Wingardium Leviosa_ -ed Professor Eric instead of the quill on his desk...by _accident_.

Chanyeol was pretty sure he was the only one who believed that it was an accident because the rest of their classmates still looked scared of Baekhyun. Poor Professor Eric had gotten the shock of his life and always gave him wary glances whenever he passed them.

Other notable incidents included:

  * Managing to break at least one glassware during every meal time for a week such that both the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff tables had reached a negotiation and literally provided plastic ware one time just for this walking disaster - and they gave up after he still broke that by accidentally snapping the spoon.
  * Getting the Hufflepuff combination password wrong every single day in that same week and getting doused in vinegar every time _without fail_.
  * Almost setting Kyungsoo’s robe on fire or singeing the Ravenclaw prefect’s immaculately done up hair and getting hexed for it.
  * Flooding his dorm room when an aguamenti spell went wrong (Son Hyunwoo, sixth year Gryffindor house prefect, had been extremely relieved when Chanyeol offered to keep Baekhyun in the Hufflepuff dorm after that.)
  * Accidentally locking himself inside the Divination classroom.
  * Falling out of his bed and nearly breaking his back every single time.



Baekhyun was even close to breaking a telescope in Astronomy. That telescope was lucky Jongdae was there to grab it before it smashed to infinity at the bottom of the Astronomy tower. All in all, it was very obvious that somewhere on Mount Olympus, Tyche had an agenda against Byun Baekhyun.

If he were a nosy Gryffindor, he would have been all up in Baekhyun’s business, investigating these unfortunate incidents. But such wasn’t the case (he was happy in Hufflepuff, thank you very much) and he had a strict _No Involvement Policy_ _TM_ , where he would not interfere in drama or unfortunate events until participants stuck in said drama/unfortunate events were in life threatening situations. To be honest, Baekhyun did trigger mishaps that were close enough to be life threatening but not _quite_ life threatening.

Thus, Chanyeol had come to a grim acceptance that his best mate was now a disaster magnet.

Speaking of which, the most disastrous magnet of them of all - a frazzled looking Baekhyun - approached him during breakfast and Chanyeol sat up in concern. Had he finally managed to set fire to the Gryffindor dorm?  

“I thought you were eating with your Gryffindor roommates today? Hyunwoo’s weekly house bonding or something? Don’t tell me you set fire - ”

“- forget the weekly bonding, I think I lost my freaking journal!” Baekhyun cut him off, gripping the strands of his hair in panic (Chanyeol winced because that would surely lead him to the path of premature balding).

“Baekhyun - ”

“I swear I had it with me last night - ”

“Baek - ”

“- and now I’m going to lose _years_ of ideas and unfinished stories - ”

“Baek - ”

“- fuck what if somebody steals my shit -”

“Bacon!” Chanyeol yelled and promptly threw a piece of bacon at the shorter boy’s face to shut him up. Just to make a point. It hit Baekhyun smack dab on his nose, leaving a red, greasy stain on that spot and dropped down to the floor.

Baekhyun blinked.

Chanyeol snickered at him, ignoring the disapproving looks he was receiving from Seokjin for wasting a perfectly good piece of bacon.

As soon as the Gryffindor came to his senses, he started whining, “Did you _really_ have to hit me on the nose? And with a piece of bacon? You _know_ I’m sensitive about being called that! This is child abuse!”

“Well you wouldn’t shut up,” Chanyeol retorted. “If you’d let me speak, you’d know that your journal is perfectly fine. It’s on my bedside table because you left it there last night. Remember?”

“...I don’t actually remember that. My mind was too busy making me forget the stupid Gryffindor house password. I had to wait for Ken let me into my own house,” His friend muttered darkly.

Chanyeol cringed, “Again?”

His friend gave a long suffering sigh in reply and collapsed into the empty seat beside him. At this rate, Baekhyun would probably forget himself _and_ his surroundings. Chanyeol awkwardly pet his head. As amusing as his clumsiness had been at the beginning, it was becoming a nuisance and at times, a life hazard too. Now, it was something to worry about.

“Anyway, how was Quidditch practice this morning?” Baekhyun asked, dejectedly eating an omelette from his plastic fork that had magic-ed onto the table near him while everyone else used proper cutlery.

“I think my bum’s still sore but it was super productive,” Chanyeol offered, ignoring Baekhyun’s cry of ‘I did _not_ need to know that!’. “Heize noona and Yixing hyung are really determined to win that Quidditch cup this year. I wish they’d stop overworking us, though.”

“At least one of us is being productive,” Baekhyun had taken to stabbing his omelette. “I’m still stuck on that bloody writer’s block.”

“Still?” Chanyeol asked half-heartedly, nervously glancing at Baekhyun’s fork, lest he stabbed his own finger.

“ _No_ , I’ve been churning out three chapters a day - no shit Sherlock,” The other grumbled sarcastically, not realising that the Sherlock reference had flown right over the tall Hufflepuff’s head.

Chanyeol knew as much as any other pure blood about the muggle world. Which was a resounding zero. But he tried to learn more about it, and sometimes he’d surprise himself and Baekhyun by sprouting random muggle trivia and knowledge.

Nevertheless there was something in the muggle world that he was absolutely well versed in. That something was unsurprisingly zoology. In fact, he was certain that the muggles themselves were unaware of the vastness of their own animal kingdom.

Gruelling practices and disaster best friends aside, he could always count on animals to make his day better. And maybe that’s exactly what his gloomy best friend needed.

“I have two freebies and maybe I could use them to get my mojo back?” Baekhyun was muttering to himself and Chanyeol hid his fond smile. Baekhyun wasn’t aware of his little habit (it wasn’t like Chanyeol hadn’t tried; the stubborn dork hadn’t believed him) but whenever he got less than the sleep he required, the redhead tended to mumble his thoughts out loud.

“Baek,” Chanyeol tapped his shoulder to get his attention. “I think I know just what you need. Come with me to Care of Magical Creatures.” Baekhyun literally stopped eating at this and gave the taller boy a disbelieving stare.

Chanyeol continued on, oblivious to the metaphorical lasers shooting out of Baekhyun’s eyes, ”Professor’s Minho’s in Bulgaria or somewhere this entire week and our substitute professor doesn’t give a shit anyway, so you won’t get into trouble. We can look at the adorable Blast Ended Skrewts or the Fire Crabs! Maybe even a Niffler! Just gotta make sure we don’t have anything shiny on us, you know?”

“Yeol-ah, I know your intentions are noble and I appreciate that, but - ” The other patiently started, once the taller was done, “ - animals hate me. Despise me. That’s why I dropped Care of Magical Creatures if you’d recall.” Then he frowned, adding, “Especially Nifflers. Those fuckers stole my grandpa’s watch. Grandma nearly chewed me out when I told her I’d lost a family heirloom.”

“They don’t hate you!” Chanyeol said defensively. “They’re just shy.”

“Two days ago, a kneazle literally hissed at me.”

“They like their personal space, alright?”

“What about the Blast Ended Skrewt that tried to eat my arm _four days ago_?”

“...there are other animals we could tend to,” Chanyeol quickly decided before fully registering what Baekhyun had said. “Blast Ended Skrewts are normally pretty agreable. How in the world did you manage to piss one off so much that it tried to bite your arm off?” He asked incredulously.

“I don’t fucking know. I didn’t ask to be hated by animals!” The other dramatically wailed, burying his face against the taller’s shoulder.

Chanyeol thought he saw Minhyuk and Taemin, two fifth year Hufflepuffs (one of whom he’d dated towards the end of fifth year), staring quite intently at them before Minhyuk groaned and reluctantly slipped a wad of cash into a smug Taemin’s hand. But he paid it no heed because why would Minhyuk and Taemin’s antics have anything to do with him and Baekhyun? Sure, they received a lot of stares from his housemates and sometimes people like Amber would look at them weirdly but he’d just chalked that up to Baekhyun being from a different house (and sure, one of those people who were a little too invested in them included his ex boyfriend, but Minhyuk and him were still friends so he was pretty sure the fifth year wasn’t harbouring any nefarious plans. At least, not towards _him_ ). However, the novelty of a Gryffindor sitting at their table should have worn off _years_ ago.

He shook his head. Some things weren’t meant to be deciphered.

Baekhyun, as usual, had dozed off against his shoulder but he was drooling so Chanyeol only felt a little bad waking him up by flicking his forehead so that he wouldn’t miss his Potions class.

“If you’re going to break or burn something, just make sure it doesn’t involve Kyungsoo or Professor Chaerin,” Chanyeol amusedly cautioned as he dropped Baekhyun off at his class. His best mate flipped him the bird in response.

He was glad to that Baekhyun’s gloominess had been short lived. And just maybe, the animals would make him feel even better (it wasn’t like he wanted some company, oh no. This was utterly altruistic).

He could tell this was going to be a great idea.

 

* * *

 

It was a fucking terrible idea.

“I’m sorry! I thought she would snarl, maybe meow aggressively. I didn’t think she’d run away!” Baekhyun vehemently defended himself, as though his actions didn’t just land Chanyeol into a shitload of trouble.

“Baek, Hildegard is a fucking _periculo_ kneazle, classified XXX, practically _XXXX_ , by the bloody ministry and she’s done nothing but hiss and growl at you the entire time,” Chanyeol impatiently said, looking like he was a second away from wringing the shorter’s neck. “And knowing all of this, your first reaction was to _fucking poke her nose?!_ ”

Baekhyun winced as the Hufflepuff’s volume exponentially increased towards the end, “It was a cute nose. And don’t blame me for your weak-ass grip!”

“Fucking - ” Chanyeol abruptly cut himself off to pinch the bridge of his forehead and let out a pained sigh. “We need to find her. Now.”

 

_Fifteen minutes ago_

_“You’re actually here!” Chanyeol brightened upon seeing the redhead make his way to where he stood - the field outside of their elusive gamekeeper, Mr. Lee Hyun’s, hut._

_Baekhyun was late because Care of Magical Creatures was just about to end. But Chanyeol wasn’t too worried about that. They had lunch afterwards anyway and no Professor Minho to shoo them away from the field. They could spare some time for Chanyeol to open his depraved friend’s eyes to the wonders of magizoology._

_As he got closer, he noticed that Baekhyun’s hand was bandaged, something that hadn’t been there before, so he figured it was Potions-related accident. It was confirmed by the victim himself because he’d started to explain himself before Chanyeol could even ask about it._

_“Before you ask and diss me for getting into another accident, yes I tripped and accidentally added too much of an ingredient in one potion. It not only nearly blew up in mine and Kyungsoo’s faces but I also burned my hand because of it. And I waited for nearly two whole periods before Madame Jiwon could come in and heal me. I hate my life. So much.”_

_Chanyeol was half concerned and half amused but he dared not to let a chuckle break past his lips. Baekhyun would never come to the field again if he laughed now._

_“You’re clearly all patched up now so stop complaining, you big baby,” He ruffled Baekhyun’s hair, who yelped and began to fix it. “Let’s go meet the animals now! I can’t wait to show you the knarls and the imps…”_

_“Oh no, how is your hand now, Baek? You nearly burnt your hand off, had to brave that pain for nearly ninety minutes and yet, you’re still here to see animals with me? You’re the best friend anyone could ever have!” Baekhyun muttered sarcastically to himself as he followed Chanyeol.  “Why thank you for your concern, Yeol. I am, after all, the best friend anyone could ever ask for.”_

_“Baek, stop talking to yourself.” Chanyeol called out. “You’re gonna scare the knarls away.” Baekhyun would have argued but said nothing, because an excited Chanyeol was a terribly endearing Chanyeol._

_They walked until they reached near the edge of the Forbidden Forest, where the Mr. Hyun and Professor Eunyoung’s vegetable patches lay. Baekhyun hid behind his giant of a best friend as the other made a strange clicking noise. Chanyeol could look at a Hungarian Horntail with the same cooing adoration he showed to a tiny Crup so one could never be sure what kind of animal his zoology-crazed best friend would invite._

_After about a minute, two pairs of eyes, which were attached to rather small bodies that resembled rice dumplings, almost shyly peeked at them over the bushes and Baekhyun wanted to melt because they actually were fucking_ adorable _. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as much of disaster. Chanyeol’s entire being brightened at the appearance of the tiny creatures and he beckoned them over._

_“Elvis, Whitney! Come over here, my tiny buddies!” Chanyeol cooed at them and Baekhyun chuckled softly at his friend’s tendency to name the animals he liked after famous musicians._

_Elvis and Whitney, the creatures who starkly resembled hedgehogs (this suddenly explained why Chanyeol wanted him to see these creatures so bad; Baekhyun always had a soft spot for hedgehogs, given that his patronus was one), ambled over to where they stood. Chanyeol picked up one of them in his arms and encouraged him to do the same. Baekhyun crouched down and held out his arms, and the smaller of the two wriggled into his arms._

_The tiny creature looked so content and sleepy in his arms. Baekhyun wanted to coo at them and also maybe cry a little. These were the only animals who didn’t distrust him._

_“Elvis and Whitney might look like hedgehogs but really, they’re knarls,” Chanyeol explained, holding the knarl close to his chest as the creature snuggled against it. Shit, if it got_ any _softer than_ that _, Baekhyun would be vomiting fluff. Chanyeol then proceeded to lightly bounce the knarl in his arms._

_“Elvis here is five years old and Whitney over there - ” He gestured to the knarl contently snuggled in Baekhyun’s arms. “ - is four years old. A normal hedgehog’s life span is usually five years but knarls? They have double the lifespan of a regular hedgehog.”_

_Chanyeol saw his best friend smile after he finished his explanation. He high fived himself internally._

_“So, you bringing me to see knarls is totally not related to the fact that my patronus is a hedgehog?” Chanyeol recognised this to be an indirect, a very Baekhyun-like way of saying ‘thanks’._

_“I mean… they can’t hate someone who’s practically their own kin right?” Chanyeol teased. “Figured knarls would be the only ones who wouldn’t bite, scratch or put you in mortal danger. Just… don’t try to feed them. Hedgehogs love food but knarls see them as a trap. So yeah, don’t.” He emphasised his point with a pointed look towards the Gryffindor._

_“I wasn’t going to - ” Baekhyun immediately began to protest but he shut up after Chanyeol gave him another_ look _. The taller knew him too well and true enough, the food he’d wanted to feed them were hidden inside his jacket._

 _“_ Fine _,” He relented and allowed Chanyeol to quickly cast the vanishing spell. Both of them had come to a silent agreement to not let Baekhyun do the spell himself - he’d probably vanish_ himself _with his new disaster streak._

 _It was all going suspiciously well -_ too _well - and they both were wrong to think that it would stay that way._

_Chanyeol suddenly heard a snarl and though his heart nearly leaped out of his throat for a second, he made sure to stay still because the creature that emitted that sound seemed like a predator and he would be dead meat if he tried to run. Baekhyun, he could tell, was seconds away from bolting - but maybe all that cautionary advice from Care of Magical Creatures about not making any sudden movements were finally coming back to him._

_The knarls, however, were quickly awoken by that sound, and they made no haste in scampering away from them._ At least the knarls would be safe if I died right here _, Chanyeol thought as the snarling and the hissing sounds grew louder._

 _He slowly inched his hand toward his jacket pocket, where his wand was located and saw Baekhyun do the same. With a stupefy_ _on the tip of his tongue, his hand closed around the handle of the wand and he would have cast the spell in less than a second if the perpetrator of those noises had been a dangerous predator…_

_… but the creature standing in front of them was farther than any apex predator that Chanyeol’s fear ridden mind kept conjuring for him._

_It was a fucking_ kneazle _._

_In a second, it seemed like all the fight went out of his body and Chanyeol let out the breath he was holding. All this adrenaline, just for a kneazle. And not just any kneazle - it was a kneazle extremely familiar to the Hogwarts grounds._

_Technically, the creature was only spotted in the Hogwarts grounds occasionally and even then, Chanyeol knew it was because she allowed for herself to be seen. He suspected that this kneazle mostly kept to the edges of the Forbidden Forest, which was a riveting fact in itself because the Forbidden Forest was_ not _for the faint-hearted and definitely not for kneazles - no matter how intelligent and independent they were._

_The creature in front of him, though, was far from being a regular kneazle._

_She was a_ periculo _kneazle (classified between XXX and XXXX) to be exact, so technically he and Baekhyun couldn’t be faulted for freaking out and getting their guards up. Periculo kneazles were one of the rarest animals because they were creatures born out of interbreeding and kneazles were some of the hardest animals to interbreed. Even if the interbreeding succeeded, most of them died as kittens. So the fact that this particular kneazle had survived kittenhood and grown up to be this self aware animal, never failed to amaze a zoology nerd such as himself._

_She had overcome all odds and grown wonderfully into herself, prompting Chanyeol to name her after one of the greatest female composers of all time - Hildegard von Bingen (He chose to ignore how the kneazle never responded to ‘Hildegard’ and how severely Baekhyun had judged him for naming her that)._

_Hildegard looked like any other kneazle, with black flecked, grey fur, blue eyes and a plumed tail that resembled that of a lion’s - only, she was more than twice as big and twice as heavy as her regular counterparts. Despite her XXXX branding, she only showed her aggression when provoked and was normally a creature of calm disposition._

_At the least, Chanyeol had gained a fraction of her approval and hadn’t witnessed any of her aggression._

_Hildegard loved books and the smell of old parchment, considering how he’d seen her curled on top of Professor Minho’s books whenever he’d spotted her. That’s how he knew she was also far more intelligent than a regular kneazle. She obviously couldn’t read them but he knew that she was fascinated by the printed text and the colourful illustrations._

_It had seemed like he’d won a ticket to the World Quidditch series when the Professor entrusted him with keeping a watch on Hildegard before he’d left for Bulgaria. He liked to assume that they had a special bond which consisted of him trying to win her approval by bringing her books, in which case she would promptly ignore Chanyeol and turn her attention to said books, and being on the receiving end of her dry, unimpressed stare as she probably cussed him out in feline speech._

_He wanted so badly for it to be heavy denial. He wasn’t used to animals not trusting him - much less hating him._

_The same couldn’t be said for Baekhyun, however, as Hildegard practically growled at him. Surprisingly, he didn’t even look scared. Just merely curious._

_“Wow. He’s fucking huge for a kneazle.”_

And _Baekhyun just had to go ahead and ruin it for himself._

 _Hildegard was a_ female _kneazle - she was extremely particular about that - and the Gryffindor had misgendered her, igniting her wrath. Chanyeol elbowed Baekhyun in the side and whisper shouted, “Dude, it’s a_ she _and great job ‘cause_ she _hates you even more now.”_

 _Baekhyun huffed. “Well, I’m sorry for offending_ her _sensibilities, jeez.”_

_The periculo kneazle clearly didn’t appreciate his sarcasm because she aggressively hissed and and looked like she was a second away from mauling his face with her fatal claws, causing Baekhyun to back away in alarm. Seeing how this occurrence was highly probable, Chanyeol decided to intervene._

_He fished around his enormous robe pocket until he found what he was looking for and waved it in front of Hildegard. “Hildy, look what I got you,” He cooed. “It’s roasted tuna eyeball!”_

_He saw Baekhyun make a disgusted expression out of the corner of his eye. In his defence, kneazle taste buds were weird but hey, it was the only way the kneazle would even consider approaching him._

_He carefully approached the kneazle, who was gazing at him and the eyeballs in his hand with as much suspicion as she could manage. He extended his hand forward. Hildegard almost seemed like she was assessing him before probably deciding that the roasted tuna eyeballs in his hands overpowered her distrust for him._

_Chanyeol was totally_ not _offended_ _by the fact that he had to resort to bribery to approach an animal._

_He crouched low and offered one roasted eyeball to the kneazle, mentally finding amusement in how kneazles preferred class even in one of the grossest dishes that had ever existed. Hildegard sniffed at the eyeballs, to probably check if the quality was up to her taste or not. Before he knew it, all the five eyeballs from his hand had disappeared._

_Hildegard looked like the most satiated kneazle at the moment and he thought it was adorable._

_“You musta been starving, Hildy,” Chanyeol cooed in the so-called ‘animal whisperer’ voice that Baekhyun claimed he possessed as the kneazle allowed him to her pet her. Surprisingly, she even let her large feline body to be lifted into his arms without a sound. The roasted tuna eyeballs were truly the answer to life and everything in between, he decided, petting the overgrown, heavy cat in his arms._

_“I still can’t believe you named her Hildegard,” Baekhyun muttered, earning not only a glare from the taller but also a growl from kneazle, who seemed a little too offended for someone who didn’t even like that particular name._

_“It has a deep, symbolic meaning behind it, fuck off.”_

_“Okay,_ jeez _, chill out, I never said it was_ terrible _.” Baekhyun paused, mulling his words over. “Well, not_ entirely _terrible at least but thank god you didn’t name her_ Beyonce _or something.” At Chanyeol’s blank look, he let out a heavy sigh. “I have to get you out of classical music and into the some good ol’ pop music, my dude.”_

_“As long as it’s not that abomination of a song about erm… big butts, I’m cool with anything.” Chanyeol said with a grimace, still petting Hildegard and supporting her weight._

_Wizarding music hadn’t evolved much since the nineties, despite the leaps and bounds being made in the muggle world, and the artists now were either cheap knock off versions of Celestina Warbeck or just plain terrible, experimental bands._

_Baekhyun snickered, probably remembering the culture shock Chanyeol had had when they’d viewed ‘Baby Got Back’ by Sir Mix-a-Lot._ This _was exactly why Chanyeol stuck with classical music. And Celestina Warbeck. You never went wrong with her._

_“Hey wait - ” And Baekhyun was suddenly squinting at Hildegard like he was trying to read Professor Heechul’s chicken scrawl. “ - this one’s the same kneazle that hissed at me the other day.”_

_Chanyeol looked up from the kneazle to stare at him with a mildly alarmed expression. “Baek… you should probably run. Far, far away from her. Now.”_

_“She seems completely fine to me, though.” The idiot was completely disregarding his warning and was instead walking closer, causing the kneazle to stiffen up and hiss. “Aww, look at that, she’s trying to bury herself into your chest!”_

_“Baek, she’s a_ periculo _kneazle and that literally translates to ‘danger’. Just because she’s not doing anything right now doesn’t mean she suddenly likes you - ”_

_He cut himself off when Baekhyun just went ahead and did the unthinkable._

_He poked the kneazle’s nose._

_Correction: Byun Baekhyun, a human expected to have basic self preservation instincts, simply went ahead and poked the nose of the most dangerous kneazle to ever exist. Because he fucking_ felt _like it._

 _Chanyeol tightly held onto Hildegard as she went absolutely went_ berserk _. She growled and hissed, wriggling violently in his arms with her sharp claws extended out, and if he kept holding onto her, she would either bite his arm or scratch at it until it looked like a quilt made of clotted blood. Still, he tried valiantly until Hildegard turned to him, fangs bared and growled with a threat that promised something worse than scratch marks. He let go of the kneazle like he’d been burned._

_Hildegard used this to leap out of his arms, and run towards the pathway that lead to the Hogwarts castle, disappearing from sight in a blink, but not before she could hiss at Baekhyun one last time._

_Baekhyun and Chanyeol were both left gaping at the sudden turn of events for a long time before the former broke their baffled silence. “… we fucked up majorly, didn’t we?”_

_“No, Baek.” Chanyeol gripped the ends of his sleeves, to stop himself from lashing out at the Gryffindor. “_ You _fucked up majorly.”_

 

_The present_

“Where do we even _start_? It’s gonna take ages to find her in gigantic castle,” Baekhyun pointed out, like he hadn’t been studying and living in the very castle for the last six years.

 _Maybe you shouldn’t have poked her fucking nose then_ , is what Chanyeol wanted to say but he really didn’t want to get into petty arguments with his best friend when they could be focusing on finding Hildegard so Professor Minho wouldn’t burn him alive at the stake.

“She’s literally one of the most secretive creatures ever and she can’t be found unless she wants to be found. We should just give up now and own up to Professor Minho. Maybe, instead of burning me at the stake, he’ll give me a quick, painless death,” Chanyeol said in exaggerated despair.

“Dude, shut up and stop being overdramatic. Didn’t you say that she likes the smell of books and parchment? Could she have gone to the library?”

As soon as Baekhyun suggested that, it was like a _lumos_ went off in Chanyeol’s head.

“Baek, you’re a fucking genius.” He proclaimed and loudly smooched the shorter’s forehead (as though he weren’t just fuming mad at other a few minutes ago). Baekhyun only grimaced at the taller’s overly affectionate displays of excitement. “I won’t die of an early death, after all! Let’s go look for her!” And Chanyeol lightly grabbed Baekhyun’s sleeve, as he marched his way to the castle.

He was a man on a mission.

“Dude, Merlin, my legs aren’t that long so slow down, will you?” Baekhyun huffed as he got dragged against his will. “Also, we have lunch, genius. Lost kneazle or not, I am _not_ letting myself starve.”

“Shit, yeah. Nutrition and everything.” Chanyeol groaned. “I also just remembered that we have Transfiguration after lunch. We can’t miss Professor Heechul’s class. He still disses us for being late to class _once_ in the beginning of the year and I _really_ don’t wanna find out how he’s gonna diss us if we miss a whole class.” Baekhyun flinched and nodded in agreement like _yeah, let’s not_.

… He was still a man on a mission, he decided. The mission would just have to delayed.

 

* * *

 

“You need to be careful, Baek!” Chanyeol found himself saying, for maybe the two hundredth time in their Transfigurations class, as he managed to stop an ink bottle (that Baekhyun had knocked down) from spilling all over him.

“Sorry. And thanks.” Baekhyun said weakly, taking his ink bottle back from Chanyeol. “Literally I’m so done with myself right now. I was _never_ this clumsy and it’s really starting to piss me off.”

Chanyeol could only nod and pat Baekhyun’s shoulder reassuringly because it was true. They really couldn’t ignore the magnitude of accidents that kept happening around him.

“It’s like I swapped souls with you _and_ Jimin!” Baekhyun suddenly proclaimed.

“Hey!” Chanyeol was very mildly offended for himself and Jimin. But he supposed it was a fair allegation since his younger brother could literally trip anytime, anywhere, and as for himself, his long limbs didn’t exactly make him the most graceful person around.

So he only shrugged. “Whatever. You’re right, I guess.”

“…I wasn’t expecting you to agree with me so quickly. You are literally always in denial of how clumsy you are.”

“Am _not_. And anyways, it’s not like my clumsiness matters anymore because you stole that title now.”

Baekhyun let out the most exaggerated gasp in response (reminding Chanyeol exactly why the redhead hadn’t ventured into acting) before sighing in resignation. “Fair enough, I guess. I don’t know what’s up with me, honestly.”

It ended up getting really silent after that (because really, what could he say to that?) and Chanyeol didn’t _do_ silence so he decided to bring up, or rather, complain about his gruelling Quidditch practice. “I’m frankly offended at how half the members in the team won’t accept the fact that I prevented Slytherin from scoring in that first match.”

It was an abrupt topic change but then again, he was told that he tended to switch topics rather quickly. Good thing his best friend was used to it.

Said best friend snorted at his complaint. “If you’re talking about the first match, I’m sorry man, I have to agree with them. It was your miraculous dumb luck acting up again.”

“I’m _not_ that bad at Quidditch, am I?” Chanyeol frowned and Baekhyun hurriedly tried to reassure the blue haired boy. “No, you dork, you’re pretty great at Keeping. But you had your damn back turned when the slytherin team was trying to score because you decided to fix your robe _in the middle of a fucking match_ \- ”

“ - I had to protect my decency!”

“ - and somehow when Kibum hyung tried to score, the quaffle bounced off of your back and hit Yixing hyung in the face because your beaters were too busy cackling to do anything about it.” Baekhyun stopped himself to laugh about the unfortunate Hufflepuff-Slytherin match of last November.

The entire stadium had been reduced to a stunned silence when the quaffle had bounced off of Chanyeol’s back like a yo-yo and hit own his own teammate, until Baekhyun, the quidditch commentator (and traitor), had snickered into his mic, causing the entire crowd to burst out in heaps of laughter. Chanyeol winced. Sure, he’d kept Slytherin from scoring but the Quaffle had hit his back pretty hard and Baekhyun couldn’t help but diss him throughout the match, like the supportive and sympathetic friend he was. And the matches after that too. It had become a sort of running joke thanks to the redhead.  

“You had a lot of fun with that one didn’t you?” He grumbled as Baekhyun still continued to snicker. “It’s still fucking hilarious, I’m sorry. But I’m not gonna lie. You single handedly gave me a punchline to work with for the entire year. Use more of that dumb luck, please.”

“Gee, thanks.” Chanyeol muttered, trying not to think of how that so called ‘dumb luck’ had been used up in vain because Slytherin had ended up winning anyway.

Before he could dwell on that thought, Professor Heechul had made his way to class and the first thing he did was to raise an eyebrow at him and Baekhyun, since they conveniently happened to be seated right at the front. Baekhyun and Chanyeol collectively groaned, knowing that this man wouldn’t start class without his obligatory disses towards them.

“My my - “ Professor Heechul began, crossing his arms and leaning back against his desk, like a bad imitation of those villains in the movies Baekhyun had shown him. “ - if it isn’t Mr. Byun Baekhyun and Mr. Park Chanyeol who are early to my class for, perhaps, the first time this year. Is it my birthday? I feel so special right now.”

Some of the students snickered, the others either groaned or rolled their eyes like _not again_ because the Professor literally pulled these dramatics every time him and Baekhyun were early.

“Professor, is it _really_ necessary to do this every time?” Baekhyun protested. “We were literally only late _once_.”

A raised eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Tell that to the number of detentions you’ve got in my class.” He said, before turning to the blackboard and charming it to make their lesson plan appear.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun just looked at each other and rolled their eyes at this hypocrisy since the professor had arrived late too. _So extra_ , Chanyeol thought but he wasn’t really offended. The Transfigurations professor regularly took the piss out of his students but he was never an asshole about it. In fact, Chanyeol would have detested the fuck out of that damn patronising tone if it were coming from anyone but professor Heechul. He actually liked really liked Heechul as a professor.

The same couldn’t be said for his subject, though.

Chanyeol found himself zoning out throughout class multiple times and risking possible detention by sneakily reading a book about the different species of winged horses. If it were up to him, he’d fill up his schedule with only Care of Magical Creatures, Herbology and Defence with a sprinkle of Music and Quidditch. Alas, Hogwarts expected their students to be well rounded and here he was, bored out of his mind.

After what felt like half a millenia, Transfiguration finally ended and Chanyeol was getting a distinct feeling in the back of his mind that he was forgetting something extremely important. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was though.

“Maybe an assignment? Go ask someone from your class.” Baekhyun suggested and froze when he saw Jongdae walking towards them, like he and the Slytherin didn’t walk to their Astronomy class after Transfiguration every Monday.

Chanyeol hid his laughter in his palm and quietly sneaked away from them. He had a free period right now and he planned to catch up on his forgotten assignments. It couldn’t be Defence or Charms because either Jongdae or Baekhyun respectively would have definitely reminded him and he was up to date in both Transfiguration and Care of Magical Creatures. That only left Herbology.

Luckily, he happened to notice Do Kyungsoo (Jongdae’s best friend and Baekhyun’s frenemy), who was in his Herbology class, scurrying out of the room like he didn’t want to waste even a second of his time, so he hurried after the Ravenclaw.

Frankly, he was a little nervous approaching Kyungsoo. They were practically strangers and he only knew about him from Baekhyun’s long tirades about the other or from the tidbits of information Jongdae would occasionally share with him. Chanyeol usually didn’t have trouble making friends with strangers but considering the Ravenclaw’s permanent resting bitch face and his curt, almost snappish responses, he didn’t think friendship wasn’t on the other boy’s mind. This didn’t even include their polar opposite personalities. So, it wasn’t surprising that they’d had close to zero interaction (not due to lack of effort on Chanyeol’s side at least).

Guess that was going to change now.

He caught up with the brunette in record time, clearing his throat loudly to get the other’s attention and stopping directly in front of him. Typically, a normal person reaction included jumping up in fright or at least letting out a sound to express their surprise.

But not Do Kyungsoo. He was above normal people reactions.

He barely blinked as Chanyeol just upped and appeared but his expression did imply that he was seconds away from decking Chanyeol right then and there.

“What?” The brunette asked in the driest possible tone and it made Chanyeol fidget in his place.

What was he supposed to ask again? Right. The Herbology assignment.

“Um, I was wondering if you wanted to walk back together?” At Kyungsoo’s blank look, he clarified. “Um, I mean, well, the Hufflepuff common room is on the way to the Ravenclaw common room - ”

“Sure.” Kyungsoo cut him off, much to Chanyeol’s relief.

He’d managed to breach past the initial hurdle of approaching this reserved boy but he’d forgotten how much he hated silence. And unfortunately for him, their walk back to their respective dorms was filled with uncomfortable silence. At least, only for him. Kyungsoo seemed perfectly fine; in fact, he almost seemed to thrive in the silence. Another tick in their endless list of differences between them.

“Ahem,” He awkwardly coughed and internally cringed. “So, about that herbology essay...have you finished it yet?”

“Yes.” Came the answer immediately. “Just before lunch.” Chanyeol wasn’t even surprised. Kyungsoo was a punctual and meticulous student, known for finishing his assignments way before deadline. He, on the other hand… he was definitely screwed.

“Oh.” Was his dumb response. Oh well, couldn’t take it back now.  

Kyungsoo turned to him after a long pause. “… Did you?”

… Literally the question Chanyeol hadn’t wanted to be asked. He burned with mortification as he answered, “Ah, no I haven’t yet. I’ll do it today, later, if I get time.”

Fuck, he only had a day to finish the stupid essay. He was thankful that Kyungsoo didn’t say anything about his tardiness. Baekhyun had made Kyungsoo seem worse than his mother whenever the Ravenclaw berated his friend for forgetting or procrastinating on an assignment. He guessed that sort of _special_ treatment only came with the privilege of Kyungsoo liking you.

They continued walking, drenched in uncomfortable silence again and Chanyeol was sure that he looked severely constipated by it.

“It’s a very boring topic,” he chose to comment about their Herbology assignment topic, hoping to start up conversation. “No offense to Professor Eunyoung.”

“Indeed.” Kyungsoo responded solemnly. “It’s extremely boring, I’m glad someone agrees with me.” Glancing at Chanyeol, he said, “If you want, borrow the books ‘Piwet’s Advanced Herbology’ and ‘Plants and How to Extract’ by Ottermin from the library. It should help in writing your essay.”

Chanyeol was taken aback by the unexpected but not unwelcome aid. “Wow, thank you, Kyungsoo.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Right,” Chanyeol awkwardly said and it was right back to square one.

He really tried to maintain this silence but it only made him fidget more. He supposed he wasn’t being very quiet about it and Kyungsoo, of all people, decided to take pity on him.“Um, how’s Care of Magical Creatures going? Baekhyun, um, told me you were thinking of pursuing a career in that field.”

The question was a little unexpected from him. “Care of Magical Creatures?” He blinked, suddenly having no response to that. Why did he have to fail at small talk _now_ ? He still continued, hoping that words didn’t fail him. “Oh that’s going great, actually - _oh fuck_.”

He stopped dead in his tracks and facepalmed - hard - when the momentary lapse in his memory came flooding back to him all at once, thanks to Kyungsoo’s question.

 _Fuck_ . Care of Magical Creatures. _Hildegard_. He and Baekhyun were supposed to be looking for that damned kneazle, lest he get burned alive and have his remains strung across somebody’s fireplace by a furious Professor Minho.

“Shit, fuck, I’m gonna die a horrible death, I _need_ to find her,” he muttered under his breath and Kyungsoo, not having heard him, could only stare at him with a baffled expression. He started profusely apologising to the brunette. “I’m sorry, I have to go, I have to go do something before I die -”

And promptly ran in the direction of the Astronomy tower to find Baekhyun.

He couldn’t be a man on a mission if he were killed by Minho.

 

* * *

 

Chanyeol anxiously waited for Baekhyun right outside the Astronomy tower, hoping to grab the other and resume their hunt for the missing kneazle.

He spotted the redhead walking outside with his curly haired DADA partner, the two smiling and laughing, looking very much like they were in their own world and really, Chanyeol was all about the #DaeBaek (their so called ship name which he’d come up with as soon as Baekhyun had educated him about muggle pop culture) life and was quite possibly their biggest supporter. He hated to separate them.

But they had a periculo kneazle loose in the castle and Chanyeol’s life was at stake here.

“Sup, DaeDae,” He greeted his DADA partner with a two fingered salute as they approached him, oblivious to said partner’s cringe at the nickname he’d been saddled with.

Baekhyun looked confused, “Yeol, what are you doing - ”

“ - Baek, we have to go now!” He ended up exclaiming, unsuccessful in keeping the panic out of his voice. “For err, research stuff in the library. Since we’re working on a, well, project in Charms.” He quickly glanced at Jongdae, whose shrewd eyes didn’t seem to find his excuse very convincing but nonetheless looked amused at his valiant attempts to be discreet.

Baekhyun’s eyes widened in realisation, “Yeah… research stuff. We gotta go right about now.”

“By all means, don’t let me keep you. Carry on, you guys,” Jongdae smiled at them. Turning to Baekhyun, it was almost like his entire expression softened, “See you in Charms tomorrow, Baekhyun. Let me know how this ‘research’ goes.” And he walked away, leaving a heart eyed Baekhyun behind.

 _Someone is so whipped that they don’t even bother hiding it_ , thought Chanyeol.  

“He’s totally _not_ convinced by our excuse, is he?” Baekhyun later questioned him as they both fast-walked towards the library. Chanyeol shook his head, “Jongdae? Nope. He ain’t buying it. Thank Merlin he doesn’t particularly care for what we’re doing though.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Baekhyun said and paused. “Wait. Why are we going to the library again?”

“Because Hildegard loves books. That was literally _your_ idea. And even if she isn’t there, I was hoping to find more information on her type of species. Maybe that’ll give us a clue about the likely places she’d go to.”

“Gotcha.” A thumbs up. “Find the damn kneazle. If not found, read about the damn kneazle and search for possible kneazle strongholds in this ginormous castle.”

“Bingo. You’re _so_ smart,” Chanyeol retorted sarcastically and got smacked in the arm for it.

They soon reached the library and tried heading towards the section dedicated to magical creatures as discreetly as possible, but they couldn’t avoid Librarian Bom eyeing them suspiciously. Her eyes followed them all the way until they disappeared from her view.

Ah, the pitfalls of being best friends with Baekhyun - who happened the librarian’s favourite person to target and so, Bom also hated Chanyeol by association.

On reaching the magical creatures section, Chanyeol had to restrain his inner nerd from jumping out and trying to issue all of the books available. It was a massive section but he was pretty sure that he’d already read almost every book in the first three shelves. And he’d already borrowed one about winged horses. But… it wouldn’t hurt to maybe borrow another one -

Baekhyun elbowed him on the side a little too hard, “Dude. Control your inner fanboy and _focus_. Kneazle on the loose remember?”

He rubbed at his side before glaring at Baekhyun and letting out a sigh, “Right. Let’s split up and look for books on periculo kneazles.”

But after about fifteen minutes of intense searching later, Baekhyun and Chanyeol slumped against a desk in frustration and stress, having come up with nothing.

“Seriously,” Baekhyun ranted. “Why is there close to _nada_ information about periculo kneazles? They even had information on regular kneazles in friggin’ places with active volcanic activity!”

Chanyeol was disappointed, sure, but he had been expecting this problem. It was inevitable. “It’s because they die in kittenhood and the ones that do live up to adulthood are practically unheard of. Much less homebody kneazles to an institution of learning.”

“I’m honestly kinda disappointed in our library right now. They need to up their game,” Baekhyun proclaimed.

Chanyeol shushed him with a flick to his arm, “Dude, shut up. Do _not_ ever let Madame Bom hear you say that. Besides, you have nobody to blame but yourself.”

Baekhyun actually looked a little affronted at that, “I thought we weren’t playing the blame game anymore, man.”

They continued bickering in a volume that might have gotten them kicked out and unknowingly walked towards the magical theory section, which was deeper inside the library. They stopped right in between the magical theory and (ironically) the dangerous animals section, seating themselves at the nearby table, when they heard a very familiar voice…

… and an even more familiar creature with someone they knew extremely well.

Kim Jongdae was standing casually next to a table in front of them, not one bit started at their sudden presence (they _had_ told him that they’d be at the library), at least not as much as Chanyeol and Baekhyun were surprised by _his_ presence.

But that wasn’t even the most shocking part.

Hildegard, the overgrown kneazle, was sat atop Jongdae’s feet (out of all the places she could be), looking more unimpressed than usual on seeing her two least favourite people at the moment.

“Oh my Merlin, it’s the kneazle!” They both cried in unison, close to tears from all the stress and the relief that flooded their veins.

Chanyeol supposed he wouldn’t die, after all.

As they practically tripped over themselves to reach her, Jongdae lifted Hildegard in his arms and she didn’t protest even once (much to Chanyeol’s shock). He couldn’t help but feel a little irrationally jealous of the curly haired Slytherin in that moment. It was petty but he really wasn’t used to being outright hated by an animal. However, his immense relief at finally having found the damn kneazle outweighed any other feeling.

“Sweet Merlin, Hildegard, where have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere for you! How could you escape from class like that?!” He cried out but when he and Baekhyun attempted to reach for her, she bared her fangs at them and growled, with her lion tail furs morphing into tiny little spikes.

Sensibly, they both jumped back to avoid being smacked by her lethal tail. She really did hate them, Chanyeol miserably thought to himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kyungsoo appear from the Magical Theory section, coming to stand behind Jongdae, clutching a book tightly to himself and watching them intently with his adorable owlish eyes. Just great. It was just what they needed. Another person to witness this mess.

Jongdae, meanwhile, was clearly enjoying his status as human-deemed-worthy-of-Hildegard. “Looks like he doesn’t want to return to you guys, Channie.” He unsympathetically snickered at their predicament. “Guess we’ll keep him then.” Even Hildegard seemed to agree and she nuzzled Jongdae’s arm, to prove her point.

Him? Hildegard was a _her_.

“That kneazle is a female,” he automatically corrected. His confused brain was still too hung up on the misgendering to register what Jongdae had said. “And what do you mean ‘keep her’? Hildy needs to come back with me.”

“You evil cat.” Baekhyun spoke up suddenly, narrowing his eyes at Hildegard and scoffing in disbelief. “You tried to bite my head off when I misgendered you!” It _was_ surprising how comfortable Hildegard seemed to be with Jongdae, so much so that she’d even let his misgendering pass.

(In his confusion and stress, he’d also completely forgotten to ask Jongdae how this kneazle had ended up with them in the first place, much gotten this comfortable with him. He’d only realise this a few days later.)

“Pretty sure, that’s not the only reason she tried to bite your head off,” Kyungsoo snarked, speaking up for the first time. “I mean, you did give her an awful name.”

Baekhyun squared up his shoulders, like he was gearing up for an argument.

“It’s the name of a well respected female composer, don’t insult her legacy, Kyungsoo,” He countered, as though he hadn’t judged Chanyeol for that very name choice.

Good lord, if Baekhyun and Kyungsoo started arguing here, they’d definitely get kicked out.

“No but seriously,” Chanyeol interrupted, before their bickering could escalate. He ignored Kyungsoo’s glare. “I need to take her back to Magical Creatures, Professor Minho will actually fucking kill me!”

“And I’m pretty sure that is not a house-pet,” Baekhyun deadpanned.

But before any of them could reply, Hildegard jumped out of Jongdae’s arms and pranced the opposite way, as though she couldn’t be bothered to listen to this conversation anymore. She halted at the archway of the aisle, peeking over at Jongdae and Kyungsoo like she were beckoning them over and disappeared from view for the second time in a day.

Great, they had lost her again. Chanyeol really wanted to tear his hair out.

The Ravenclaw-Slytherin duo however, only looked at each other, and after Kyungsoo gave the other two a tight lipped smile, they left after the kneazle, heading right back through the Magical Theory section they way they’d arrived. Their lack of a disbelieving reaction was impressive, really.

Baekhyun and Chanyeol, on the other hand, were left gaping for an entire minute before they came back online.

“Wait! Hildy!” Chanyeol panicked as he looked at Baekhyun, and then ran down the Magical Theory aisle, all the way towards the desk Kyungsoo and Jongdae happened to be seated at. Baekhyun, just as frantic as himself, chased after him.

But the problem was - Chanyeol could only see Kyungsoo and Jongdae. Hildy was nowhere to be seen.

“Wait! Where’d Hildy go?! I really need to take her back!” He asked desperately as he looked high and low. He knew Baekhyun was also searching for the kneazle.

“Dude, what even happened? How’d you lose her in the first place?” Jongdae asked with an easy grin.

“ _I_ was just ending Magical Creatures and at that time I was holding onto the kneazle,” Chanyeol emphasised to make it very clear who the real perpetrator was. Then he added, voice sarcastic, “But then, Baekhyun arrived and tried to talk to the kneazle, and voila, it escaped before we even knew what was going on!”

“So it’s Baekhyun’s fault,” Jongdae concluded, rightfully so. He was grinning but Chanyeol would have be a fool to not to notice the strange glint in his eyes. “Interesting.”

“Stop making me look like the disaster, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun said in mortification, face turning a faint red in embarrassment and shoving Chanyeol’s shoulder lightly. “It was your fault you lost grip on her!”

“I wouldn’t have if you wouldn’t have tried to poke her nose, dumbass!”

“She went somewhere over there,” Kyungsoo spoke again, helpfully pointing them towards the opposite end. He shifted his abnormally stuffed bag before speaking again. “Maybe you should try looking that way. Good luck with your search.” But no advice from Kyungsoo was complete without some diss. On cue, Kyungsoo added almost like he’d dismissed them, as he turned back to his book, “You’ll need it, considering a _cat_ has outsmarted you.”

“Always so classically mean, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun sighed and was saying something else to Kyungsoo but Chanyeol took off in that direction, not bothering to hear the rest of the conversation.

But he was only half heartedly searching for the kneazle at this point because now all his energy had to go into mentally preparing himself for the admonition of a lifetime from Professor Minho.

He was joined by a flustered looking Baekhyun few minutes later (he didn’t even have to ask to know that Jongdae had caused this) and two ran around the sections aimlessly, calling out Hildegard’s name. It wasn’t like the kneazle would jump into any of their arms any time soon but it didn’t stop their gallant efforts.

Unfortunately, Librarian Bom didn’t appreciate their efforts.

“BYUN, PARK! WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AROUND IN MY LIBRARY! OUT! GET OUT RIGHT NOW! 15 POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR AND HUFFLEPUFF! AND DON’T COME BACK!” she shouted and the two of them scrambled out of the library to escape her wrath.

Losing the kneazle twice _and_ a two day long library ban?

Someone give them an award for the sheer number of mishaps in a day.

 

* * *

 

“Feels weird to be back at the Gryffindor dorm after rooming in Hufflepuff for so long.” Baekhyun said as they sat shoulder to shoulder on his bed later that night, right after they’d cast a _muffliato_ , and Chanyeol had to agree.

It did feel weird having the soft yellow hues of his own dorm, a signature of the Hufflepuff dormitories, replaced with the garish red tones of the Gryffindor house. But maybe this only served to prove a point about how often Baekhyun slept over at his dorm than it being the other way around.

Baekhyun clearly thought the same. “I’ve slept over at your dorm way too often. I need to start sleeping here too. To rekindle my house spirit and shit.”

If only the Gryffindor’s roommates felt the same way. His roommates, Hyunwoo, Ken and Matthew, had also been unfortunately subjugated to Baekhyun’s growing disaster streak and they’d been so relieved when Chanyeol had more or less suggested that he’d let Baekhyun room with himself in the Hufflepuff dorm. Of course, this didn’t lessen his disaster streak by any means but at least Chanyeol could watch over him and make sure he didn’t hurt himself or others (by accident, of course).

It was exactly why Chanyeol was rooming with him in Baekhyun’s dorm.

“You’d either try to flood or burn the dorm. So you aren’t sleeping in any dorm unless I’m there to supervise you,” Chanyeol told him firmly.

“Constant supervision? Sounds terribly exciting.” He sarcastically muttered and then huffed. “You make it sound like those accidents are _my_ fault.” At Chanyeol’s pointed look, he tried to defend himself. “I’m not even kidding, dude. I swear I’ve been infected by something that creates disasters everywhere I go - ”

“ - I guess I can believe the accidents. But _that_ seems like a total reach.” He cut in but Baekhyun still kept going like he hadn’t been interrupted.

“ - like why else would that damned kneazle escape from us two times? Plus the other day, I got my Charms test grades back - ”

“ - uh maybe because she’s a smart kneazle and we, actually just you, were stupid enough to lose her in the first place?”

“ - and those were probably the worst grades I’ve ever received. Don’t even get me started on how - ”

“Jesus, it still hasn’t hit me that we lost Hildegard. Again. I’m gonna die very soon, Baek - “

“ - Kyungsoo’s gonna rip me a new one in the next Potions lesson because I accidentally kept messing up our ingredients. Like, that’s my worst subject but I’ve never been this bad at this before.”

“ - so please make my funeral nice and make sure you play Celestina Warbeck’s greatest hits that day.”

“…what the fuck, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun stopped him to make a face at the taller boy. “Funerals and Celestina Warbeck are in no way related to me being a potential life hazard.”

“I’m sorry my imminent death isn’t that interesting to you.” Baekhyun snickered at his pettiness.

But then Chanyeol’s expression turned more serious, “I know I diss the hell out of you for being a walking disaster zone but… I’m actually really worried about you. Have you gone to the Hospital Wing yet? Or approached any professor about this?”

“Hospital Wing? Professor? _Ha_ , no thank you.” Baekhyun scoffed, laughing a little nervously and Chanyeol… was clearly out of the loop here.

So, he frowned at the older Gryffindor’s unwillingness to take this seriously, “No, I’m being very serious, Baek. Get this shit checked out or it could escalate further - ”

“ - Chanyeollie, stop worrying,” Baekhyun gently cut him off, resting his forehead against the taller’s shoulder. Chanyeol paused.

Jeez, Baekhyun really was willing to stoop as low as doing _aegyo_ to avoid talking about this. Of course he was because Chanyeol was a weak, weak man. He tried to steel himself, repeatedly telling himself that he absolutely _would not_ fall for Baekhyun’s deceptive cuteness and it was almost working.

Until Baekhyun decided to abuse his power of the puppy dog eyes.

 _Dammit_. The Gryffindor was now peeking at him through his red bangs, making his eyes wider and looking exactly like one of those knarls in the vegetable patches (or Jimin, when he really wanted something). Chanyeol found himself caving faster than a Niffler when presented with a Galleon.

“Fine, I’ll let it go for now,” He groaned out. “Just let Madame Jiwon know about this problem soon. Also, put that face away, it’s too late for your dumb aegyo.” And he was shoving Baekhyun’s face away, which only served to make him clingier. Chanyeol indulged him just this once (maybe more than once) and lightly ran his fingers through the other’s hair.

“Before I forget,” Baekhyun started in the midst of a yawn. “Your damn owl mistook me for you and dropped your Quibbler magazine in my lap again. It’s in my bag if you want it.” He then shut his eyes, dozing off and snoring against the taller’s shoulder.

Chanyeol was honestly a little envious of the redhead because he _wished_ he could fall asleep that easily, with the weight of knowing that he’d allowed for a seven kilogram kneazle to go out of sight twice and the dread of the doomsday that awaited him the minute Minho came back from Bulgaria.  

So, since sleep wasn’t anywhere in his near future, Quibbler it was. He _accio-ed_ the magazine from Baekhyun’s bag and comfortably settled against the headboard to read it, shifting Baekhyun’s sleeping figure along with him. The magazine was engaging enough to hold his attention but it didn’t in the slightest ease his worries.

Yes, Baekhyun had managed to evade his questions but he just _knew_ that somehow his best friend had gotten himself into a shitload of trouble. And usually, he preferred staying away from the drama but he supposed that he was throwing his ‘no involvement policy’ out of the window.

Park Chanyeol was now on _full_ involvement mode.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Baekhyun's patronus is a hedgehog...is anyone surprised? 
> 
> Stay tuned for Miche's update next, where we get to see stuff through Kyungsoo's perspective!


	4. Of Creatures and Confessions | Kyungsoo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kyungsoo becomes friends with a cat, and learns a dangerous secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys~~
> 
> Thanks for all the kudos you guys are dropping! 
> 
> Love,  
> Miche xx

Do Kyungsoo returned from alchemy into his dorm, placing his bag on the bed with a heavy sigh. His neck felt strained, and he collapsed into bed, face buried in his pillow. His roommates were all out - and honestly, he preferred this.

At least in this silence, he could work on his herbology assignment without anything getting in the way. He had to write a one and half feet essay on the importance of collecting snargaluff pods with a large group and using rubber gloves, and he was dreading even starting it.

He slipped out of his robes, hanging it neatly in his personal wardrobe, now sitting in just uniform shirt and pants on his bed. Kyungsoo tackled the essay question with the same fervour he did everything, but within ten minutes and seven inches of parchment in, he was realising that his essay was severely lacking and he himself was tired of coming up with reason why wearing rubber gloves was important.

That seemed to prompt a visit to the Ravenclaw personal library down in the common room, and so Kyungsoo headed down the familiar spiral staircase until he arrived in the royal blue room, walls never failing to remind him of a piece of heaven, celestial in its architecture. The stairways to the dorms led off the opposite ends of the library, so when Kyungsoo stepped out, he found himself next to tall wooden bookshelves, hundreds of books lining the walls. As he reached the herbology section, he pulled out a book on plants with spikes, and just as he was about to reach for another textbook towards a lower shelf, he found himself face to face with a creature.

He blinked.

The creature stared back.

As far as Kyungsoo could tell...it was a very large cat. With huge ears.

So Kyungsoo wasn’t stupid - he could tell it was probably a kneazle or something. It had grey fur, with black specks all over it’s back, and wide blue eyes that told Kyungsoo it was not impressed. It had the signature plumed tail that kneazles had, and cute paws.

But it just looked like it was not happy with life in general.

Kyungsoo briefly wondered how a cat that size had managed to climb on the bookshelf and make way for itself, much less how it managed to sneak in without anyone noticing, considering you needed to answer a riddle to get in.

Shaking away the weird situation, Kyungsoo carefully, disguising it as a casual action, grabbed the book he needed a few over from where the creature sat. He didn’t want to look away, in case the animal attacked, but - well, it looked pretty comfortable where it was, even if it was watching him with those huge eyes. This was definitely a weird, weird situation. Kyungsoo pulled the book out, and then stood up, trying not to act like he wanted to brisk walk the heck of there, and turned, faux-calmly making his way back to the boy’s staircase. But the second he opened the door, and started walking up the stairs, a mix between a meow and purr sounded, and he squinted behind him.

The creature was now standing on the first step of the stairs, blue eyes almost glowing in the faint light of the staircase. He’d been right - now that the animal was sitting properly and not lying like it had been on the books, it looked much bigger than a housecat. It was probably two feet or so, judging from the distance.

Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes from where he stood on the seventh step, and asked it, “Are you following me? Why?”

The creature only stared back at him, face unimpressed as usual, and curled its tail, plumed end flicking.

Kyungsoo looked away, sighing, and wondered how to tell an animal to leave him alone without getting attacked. He looked back at the animal, who was still sitting there and waiting. He couldn’t argue that it looked fairly harmless, and it didn’t look like it would bother him either…

“Yeah, okay, come on,” Kyungsoo relented, and with what looked like a hint of a smile, the creature climbed up till the sixth stair, purring once. “But you have to promise to stay quiet, I have to do my homework.”

The creature followed Kyungsoo up the remaining stairs silently, until they arrived at the dorm. Whilst the creature paused in the centre of the blue-brown themed room, Kyungsoo headed straight towards his bed, the one closest door. Each bunk was fit into a cavity in the wall, long-side along the wall, with drapes to close the bed off from the rest of the room. With the cupboard and wardrobe next to the foot and head of the bed respectively, back to back with the next person’s cupboard and wardrobe, it was like each person had their own alcove or area in the dormitory.

And it allowed for a large open space in the middle of the room too, which was where the creature was now sat, looking around investigatory.

Kyungsoo climbed up on to his bed, throwing his pillow to the end of the bed, and then leaned back against the stonewall where his pillow was usually. Then he leaned his shoulder on the left-side stone wall that the bed was along, pausing to look out the window. Finally comfortable, he opened the newly acquired textbook, returning to where he’d last stopped writing on his essay to compare. His other books were placed near his pillow as well. Kyungsoo knew how to capitalize on space.

Suddenly, without another sound, the creature jumped up onto his bed, adjusting so that it’s lower body was chilling on the pillow whilst it’s upper body rested on top of a textbook. It’s tail flicked once, and it seemed to snuggle in with the books before purring once and then settling. Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow before returning to his essay.

He didn’t think this day could possibly get stranger.

Half an hour passed, and just as Kyungsoo finished up his essay, the door to the dorm slammed open. The creature meowed as it lifted its head, and Kyungsoo wondered if its face had a different expression setting other than unimpressed. It, much to Kyungsoo’s appreciation, hadn’t bothered him at all over the last thirty minutes, occasionally purring and digging its nose into the books but not much else. Kyungsoo had decided the animal was harmless and just really, really liked books.

His best friend Jongdae meanwhile stepped in like he owned the place, as he usually did, despite being a Slytherin trespassing into Ravenclaw territory. Jongdae did claim that since Kyungsoo was a honorary Slytherin, Jongdae was an honorary Ravenclaw. Personally, Kyungsoo always thought Jongdae would be a Gryffindor over a Ravenclaw, and it was true since Jongdae himself had told him that the Sorting Hat had nearly put him there.

“Soo, baby, it’s time for lunch -” Jongdae began singing, abruptly cutting off, “- what the _fuck_ , Soo?”

Kyungsoo looked up blankly as he was packing his book bag, “What.”

“That’s a _periculo_ kneazle Soo,” Jongdae deadpanned. “As in danger. Are you seriously telling me you didn’t know that?”

At Kyungsoo’s still blank face, he face-palmed, “It’s a level XXX, almost XXXX creature!”

“Eh,” Kyungsoo shrugged. “If he is, he hasn’t bothered me at all for the past half an hour so...”

Creature meow-purred in agreement, and Jongdae turned his attention to the animal. As Kyungsoo got off the bed, Jongdae approached the animal, kneeling beside the bed and simply standing literally face-to-face with the animal. The animal blinked back, and then after an intense staring match of ten long seconds, the creature raised a paw, patting the corner of Jongdae’s curly kitten lips. Seeing that Jongdae didn’t react wildly to its move, its tail raised, casually flicking at his curly hair.

Jongdae grinned, “Aw, I’m sorry if I offended you, Mr. Kneazle.”

The kneazle purred back, paw still on Jongdae’s face, and Jongdae’s hand came to grab it, lightly stroking the palm. It was the softest thing Kyungsoo had seen in awhile.

And he felt an overwhelming amount of cringe.

“Um, let’s go to lunch, shall we?” He cleared his throat after a beat, and Jongdae stood, lightly running his hand over the kneazle’s back and hearing it purr happily. “Kneazle, stay here, or go back to the library downstairs, or where you came from, I don’t mind either.” He ignored Jongdae’s amused expression.

After Jongdae waved his goodbye to the kneazle and Kyungsoo picked up his book-bag, the two began making their way down the staircase, only for them to catch a certain creature following them.

“Are you going to be following us down to dinner too?” Kyungsoo paused.

The kneazle meowed and Jongdae let out a sharp laugh, “Guess that answers that.” He sent Kyungsoo a suggestive side glance, “Maybe you should put him in that bag.”

“No.”

But despite that, Kyungsoo picked up the kneazle, almost startled by how soft the creature’s fur was, and deposited him inside with a firm warning not to move around too much or make noise. The creature however, looked more than happy to be inside the book-bag. Down at the dining hall, Kyungsoo sat with Jongdae at the Slytherin table, ensuring that his bookbag was at his feet. He watched as Jongdae inconspicuously managed to sneak a quarter plate with some meat under the table, feeding it to the feline. All that was left was to get caught honestly - but Jongdae reassured him that everything would be okay.

As lunch began to end and students quickly trickled out of the Hall, the two boys waited till most of the crowd was gone. As soon as the coast was clear, Jongdae reached down and grabbed the plate, and then pretended to bend over to tie his shoelaces, when in reality he was just checking to make sure that the kneazle was back in the bag.

Two seconds later, Kyungsoo was faced with a dilemma. His watch told him that there wasn’t enough time to go back to the dorm to drop off the kneazle in his room at least, but he had transfiguration next and he couldn’t exactly just walk in with the creature in his bag.

“Sure you can,” Jongdae cut through his thoughts, and Kyungsoo stared at him blankly, “Huh?”

“You were doing that thing where you talk to yourself,” Jongdae explained. “And we can take the kneazle to Transfiguration. He’s the quietest animal I’ve come across - he won’t cause us any trouble, I’m sure.” He shrugged, “And if it comes down to it, just cast a silencing charm.”

Kyungsoo looked at him with disbelief, “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m Jongdae.” And when Kyungsoo leveled him with an unimpressed stare worthy of rivalling the kneazle’s, Jongdae grinned sheepishly, “Okay sorry, but we don’t really have time. You know Professor Heechul is cool, but he’ll keep dissing us for being late.” He paused thoughtfully, “Or in your case, he’ll probably try to make you socialise or something.”

And that prospect to Kyungsoo was potentially more horrifying that the chances of being caught with a periculo kneazle.

Which is how Kyungsoo ended up on one of the back desks with Jongdae in the transfiguration classroom, a certain kneazle sitting in his book-bag. Clearly, the kneazle was awake, but before entering, Jongdae (who was practically half-cat at this point) had spoken to the kneazle about not coming out of the bag because they were in class. With added emphasis from Kyungsoo, the kneazle had settled silently in the bag. Nonetheless, Kyungsoo wasn’t taking any chances, and had quietly cast a silencing charm on the bag anyway.

Now, Kyungsoo observed around the class, half stressed someone would notice and they'd be doomed. At the front of the class, Byun Baekhyun and his best friend, Park Chanyeol, were making a commotion. Baekhyun, it seemed, had just nearly spilled an entire bottle of ink over Chanyeol, if it weren't for Chanyeol’s quick reflexes. Baekhyun, although not bad enough to be labelled clumsy, could be quite...uncoordinated sometimes.

“You need to be careful, Baek!” Chanyeol was saying.

Kyungsoo shook his head, murmuring lightly to his partner, “Baekhyun’s honestly a terror sometimes. He's a walking hazard.”

Jongdae laughed lightly, turning to look towards the boy, “You're always so critical of him.”

“You know I don't hate him,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. “I wish he’d try a bit more in class. I know it's not his subject, and I get it's just a matter of patience, but -” Kyungsoo sighed, shaking his head, “You saw what he did just now. He can be careless sometimes.”

“It was an accident, Soo,” Jongdae told him softly.

“I know, but recently, it's almost like he's getting worse, honestly,” Kyungsoo made a face. “Last week he brought over wrong ingredients even when they were clearly on the board. And this morning? He tripped over someone's bag and dropped too much foxglove into our potion and nearly blew it up in our faces. He got the worse end of the deal though, to be fair - he got burned by some of the spilled potion on his hand and he had to go to the hospital wing.” Kyungsoo paused, “Apparently, the nurse wasn't there, so he had to wait for sometime before he could get it healed too. Sometimes, I wonder if he's just unlucky, or if he's cursed.”

Jongdae paused, and Kyungsoo didn't notice his freeze as he'd leaned over to push a slightly shifting bag back under his chair. All he heard was a strained chuckle and a ‘Yeah, maybe’, but it was enough for Kyungsoo to narrow his eyes at Jongdae, who had turned to glance at Baekhyun.

“Dae?” Kyungsoo asked, noticing the brief glance, but whatever it was in Jongdae’s gaze disappeared in a flash as he turned back to Kyungsoo and smiled, “You're probably right.”

The weird feeling that had settled in Kyungsoo’s stomach at Jongdae’s expression settled when Jongdae laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners as he shook his head, “He’s really unlucky, it'd explain how his telescope nearly fell down down the Astronomy tower because one of our classmates bumped into it. He was lucky I caught it.”

Before Kyungsoo could follow up on that however, Professor Heechul was making his way into the room.

Class passed by uneventfully (luckily) however, and as soon as it was over, Kyungsoo quickly exited the room. As class ended, Jongdae quickly touched his wrist, reminding him with a bright smile, “Hey, don’t forget, we’re gonna have dinner in the kitchens today for your birthday!” And then he was leaving for Astronomy with Baekhyun almost immediately, not waiting for Kyungsoo’s response.

Just as Kyungsoo was about to make his escape back to the common room, a throat cleared on his side. Kyungsoo halted in his movements, tense in worry that he’d been caught with the kneazle by the professor, only for Chanyeol to pop in front of him with a nervous expression.

Kyungsoo felt like hitting him for springing up like that out of nowhere.

“What?” Kyungsoo asked flatly and Chanyeol teetered, “Um, I was wondering if you wanted to walk back together?” As he noticed Kyungsoo’s expression didn’t change one bit, he clarified, “Um, I mean, well, the Hufflepuff common room is on the way to the Ravenclaw common room -”

“Sure,” Kyungsoo returned shortly, nodding once. As the two made their way back, the walk was silent, almost uncomfortable. Kyungsoo knew Chanyeol, of course, it was hard not to when Baekhyun spoke about him so much and Jongdae knew him well too. Not to mention, even though Kyungsoo wasn’t paired with Chanyeol for Herbology, his seat was technically right in front of him, so he was more than well acquainted with his shenanigans. Chanyeol was, without a doubt, a clumsy and loud person. It would be cute if it weren’t so annoying and headache-supplying. But his dosage of Jongdae (for his entire life) and his potions partner Baekhyun was more than enough for him to run out of his patience quota.

He and Chanyeol didn’t have much reason to interact, not that that had ever stopped Chanyeol from trying out of courtesy whenever he came to talk to Jongdae. So naturally his Ravenclaw-self was curious about why Chanyeol had just approached him to walk back together.

“Ahem,” Chanyeol coughed awkwardly. “So, about that herbology essay...have you finished it yet?”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo answered, and then added a few seconds later, “Just before lunch.”

“Oh.” A pause. “...Did you?”

Chanyeol looked like he wanted to die, much to Kyungsoo’s quiet amusement, “Ah, no I haven’t yet. I’ll do it today, later, if I get time.”

“It’s a very boring topic,” Chanyeol commented after a few seconds of silence, still looking like he was strained by the lack of conversation. “No offense to Professor Eunyoung.”

“Indeed,” Kyungsoo agreed, finally looking like he wanted to provide information in this conversation. “It’s extremely boring, I’m glad someone agrees with me.” He side-glanced at the taller boy, “If you want, borrow the books ‘Piwet’s Advanced Herbology’ and ‘Plants and How to Extract’ by Ottermin from the library. It should help in writing your essay.”

“Wow, thank you, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol was a bit taken aback at the unexpected aid, but looked grateful nonetheless. “It’s nothing.”

“Right,” Chanyeol went back to feeling awkward, feeling like Kyungsoo was doing nothing to make this conversation easier. Kyungsoo, on the other hand, was not the least bothered by the silence, comfortable in making others feel uncomfortable. ‘As long as it isn’t me’, was the first policy Jongdae had taught him when they became friends, and Kyungsoo couldn’t argue with its accuracy. Chanyeol, on the other hand, seemed to be getting more and more fidgety, and Kyungsoo decided to take pity on him, “Um, how’s Care of Magical Creatures going? Baekhyun, um, told me you were thinking of pursuing a career in that field.”

“Care of Magical Creatures?” Chanyeol blinked. “Oh that’s going great, actually - oh fuck.” Kyungsoo stopped walking in stunned surprise as Chanyeol face-palmed, muttered something unclear under his breath, and then profusely apologised, “I’m sorry, I have to go, I have to go do something before I die -” And then he was off, running before Kyungsoo knew what was going on. Kyungsoo sighed, a strange feeling of deja vu running over him. When had he seen that happen before?

 

* * *

 

Kyungsoo had finished all of his Advanced Arithmancy homework.

Not that this was a miracle - this only meant he had no idea what to do with all of his free time. The kneazle, who had now taken residence in his dorm, hadn’t bothered him even once, and that meant Kyungsoo was ahead of schedule on his personal timetable.

All of his regular class assignments had already been completed during his free slots, and he definitely didn’t see the point of going outside the castle since it was already getting dark outside. But he still had an hour to kill. Jongdae, who was sat on the bed across Kyungsoo’s on the other side of the dorm, was finishing up some of his DADA homework - an essay on some curse and its effects (Jongdae had claimed that the curse was useless - it was too cute, not harsh enough to be curse and was more of a jinx, but had still been put under the curse category for the long-lasting time of the spell).

“Dae,” Kyungsoo called, stroking the kneazle’s fur. He was still looking out of the window, a frown etched into his face.

“Hmm?” Jongdae returned, semi-interested as he scratched out some words on his parchment. “You done?”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo sighed, and Jongdae looked up, “That’s probably the eighth time I’ve heard you sigh. What’s wrong with you? Are you bored? Go read something.”

Kyungsoo blinked.

“That’s the best idea you’ve had all evening,” He didn’t wait for Jongdae’s whining that was no doubt coming his way. “Let’s go to the library.”

“Ah, Jongdae, my dearest and only friend, would you do the _honour_ of accompanying me to the library?” Jongdae drawled dryly from his post on the bed. “Oh _sure_ , Kyungsoo, let me just finish up the last bit of this essay first before you upheave me from my comfortable location to walk at least ten minutes. I’m sure you’d like to see your girlfriend after not having seen her since, oh I don’t know, _yesterday?_ ”

“Don’t be a little shit,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. “It was your idea anyway.”

“I said read - how does that translate to ‘go to the library’?” Jongdae replied not looking like he was going to move an inch, continuing to edit his essay. “Ravenclaw Tower has books too!”

“I want to grab a book on wandlore Dae,” Soo returned patiently, however flat his expression was.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jongdae relented, reading between the lines and understanding what it meant that Kyungsoo wanted to read up on wandlore. Kyungsoo, although pressed for time, tried to squeeze in moments to research into wandlore when he could. He was incredibly passionate about it, and Jongdae had immense respect for his passion. Kyungsoo wasn’t entirely certain about his career path choice, and Jongdae was going to help him decide as much as he could - and if that meant not getting in the way when he had time to go do said research, Jongdae was not going to be a brat about it.

“Thank you,” Kyungsoo smiled genuinely. Jongdae recognized this smile, the one that appeared only around people Kyungsoo was comfortable with, and also remembered when Kyungsoo had taken so long to warm up to him when they’d first met when they were younger.

“Let me just finish this up?” Jongdae pouted. “I just have a few sentences left, and there’s no point in carrying it all the way to the library just for that.”

It was quiet for the next couple of minutes, Kyungsoo silently joining Jongdae on the other bed (J.Seph wouldn’t mind) and reading the essay over his shoulders. A few scratches and edits later, Jongdae packed up, seemingly satisfied with his work, and Kyungsoo returned to his bed to grab his book bag, “Let’s go?”

The kneazle, who up till this point had simply been lying on top of the book pile at the foot of Kyungsoo’s bed again, perked up. Kyungsoo groaned audibly, and Jongdae snickered behind him, “Looks like he’s coming with us, Soo.”

Cue the kneazle once again being a weight inside Kyungsoo’s bag (“Are you sure you don’t want me to carry him, Soo?”) and Kyungsoo trying to pretend like he wasn’t carrying a potentially illegal creature. When they reached the library, the kneazle poked the tip of its nose out of the corner of the flap of the bag, sniffing almost excitedly, just as they passed Librarian Bom, who was glimpsing at them over the rim of her glasses. Kyungsoo nearly had a heart attack at getting caught in the library, but Jongdae was saving the day, skillfully pushing the kneazle’s nose back in the bag with his palm, as he stepped in front of Kyungsoo so as to block him from sight. He smiled charmingly at the librarian, receiving a slight smile back and a nod towards Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo didn’t think he’d ever walked that fast out of a librarian’s line of sight.

“This was a bad idea,” He hissed, eyes narrowed at Jongdae accusingly as they ventured deeper into the library, hiding behind the bookshelf in the relatively isolated magical theory section. “Why do we ever listen to you?”

“Hey,” Jongdae defended with a grin. “You wanted to come here - and it was also your decision to bring the overgrown cat.”

The kneazle’s head popped up out of the bag, and Jongdae cooed at it, “Isn’t that right? It was all his fault.”

...Jongdae must really have a death wish.

Jongdae was, however, saved from his close-death-via-Kyungsoo when the kneazle skirmished its way out of the bag. To prevent his bag from being torn or worse, Kyungsoo quickly unbuckled the clasps and the cat made its way out on top of the counter in front of the book-shelf. It sniffed the spines of the books as it walked alongside the bookshelf, and Kyungsoo shot an amused-looking Jongdae a look that was definitely somewhere between dread, stress, wanting to die and wanting to kill someone.

They followed after it, but when it seemed to stop in front of a few spell theory books, Jongdae shooed Kyungsoo, “You go and read, I’m free so I’ll watch over this one.”

Shooting him a semi-grateful look, Kyungsoo began scanning the book shelves for what he wanted to read. Pulling three or four books down from the shelf, he walked down the aisle to find a comfortable table to sit at. Just as he placed his books down, a soft meow came from behind him, and two seconds later, the kneazle was upon the table, nosing his books curiously. Jongdae sat down at the table (a book in his hand too), laughing as he watched Kyungsoo tug on one of the books and practically wrestle it away from the kneazle. As Kyungsoo settled with the book open, the kneazle came and sat next to it, watching the book and Kyungsoo carefully, glancing between it.

Kyungsoo had long come to understand that this kneazle was smart. And although that was given with the species, this particular one was seemingly fond of books, which Kyungsoo would relent and agree was the reason why he kept the animal around for so long. When Kyungsoo switched books, the kneazle took the third book out of the pile, a relatively thin book considering, and began to paw through the pages with Jongdae’s help. The pictures seemed to pique its curiosity, and Kyungsoo didn’t crack a smile, despite what Jongdae tried to claim.

Jongdae stood up a few minutes into reading, probably to go replace the book he’d pulled off the shelves.

A few seconds later however, the kneazle picked up the book it was ‘reading’ in its mouth, smartly choosing the spine side to grip it with. Kyungsoo cringed, already worried about the book, but the animal was skipping down the aisle once again. When Kyungsoo moved to stand, he panicked, unsure of what to do, and grabbed the fourth book in desperation. He followed down the path the kneazle had taken, softly calling out, “Creature! Hey, ahem, Creature!”

Kyungsoo was certain the librarian would crucio his ass if she even caught air of the animal in the library and that would not be fun. Cursing under his breath, he made a turn at the end of the aisle, trying to bargain with the crazy book loving creature, “Hey, Creature, I need that book. Take this one instead.”

“Oh my Merlin, it’s the kneazle!” Two simultaneous whisper-screams came out of nowhere, and Kyungsoo quite literally froze in his moments. He found Jongdae standing in between the magical theory and dangerous animals section, next to a table. Much to his dread, Baekhyun and Chanyeol were both at the table, looking really stressed and surprised. The kneazle on the other hand, was sat on top of Jongdae’s feet, book missing from its mouth. Jongdae winked when Kyungsoo’s gaze landed on him, and he offered the book the kneazle had kidnapped towards Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo let out a sigh of relief, safely tucking the book in between his arms. Jongdae picked up the heavy cat in his arms, and the two at the table very nearly tripped over their feet in an attempt to reach the cat. Chanyeol was essentially in relieved tears, “Sweet Merlin, Hildegard, where have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere for you! How could you escape from class like that?!”

Ah, so that’s how the kneazle had ended up in the Ravenclaw dorm.

(Also, what was with the awful name?)

But when Chanyeol and Baekhyun approached, the animal did the last thing Kyungsoo had expected: it practically snarled, fangs bared in a threatening manner. The lion-tail fur on the cat’s tail suddenly straightened, turning into small spikes.

“Looks like he doesn’t want to return to you guys, Channie,” Jongdae snickered. Well, Kyungsoo could understand _that_ feeling at least. “Guess we’ll keep him then.” That, not so much.

The kneazle purred softly in agreement, rubbing its head against Jongdae’s arm, and then narrowed its eyes pointedly at Chanyeol and even seemed to glare at Baekhyun. Kyungsoo was once again struck by how smart this cat really was.

Maybe he _should_ keep him.

“That kneazle is a female,” Chanyeol paused all of a sudden, looking adorably confused. “And what do you mean ‘keep her’? Hildy needs to come back with me.”

Sweet Merlin, _Hildy?_

“You evil cat,” Baekhyun narrowed his eyes at the animal, scoffing in disbelief. “You tried to bite my head off when I misgendered you!”

...Kyungsoo should _definitely_ keep her.

“Pretty sure, that’s not the only reason she tried to bite your head off,” Kyungsoo deadpanned. “I mean, you did give her an awful name.”

Of course, this ruffled Baekhyun’s tail feathers, always ready to banter and argue, “It’s the name of a well respected female composer, don’t insult her legacy, Kyungsoo.”

“No but seriously,” Chanyeol spoke again, not giving time for anyone, especially Kyungsoo, to respond. Kyungsoo settled with glaring. “I need to take her back to Magical Creatures. Professor Minho will actually fucking kill me!”

“And I’m pretty sure that is not a house-pet,” Baekhyun deadpanned. Kyungsoo felt a headache coming on, already drained by this conversation.

But before anyone could say anything, the kneazle jumped out of Jongdae’s arms, prancing it’s way back the way it had come. The four stared at it as the animal suddenly stopped in the archway of the aisle, looking over its shoulder at Kyungsoo and Jongdae as if to say ‘well, are you coming?’

Kyungsoo could roll with that.

He gave a tight-lipped smile at the two noisy boys at the table, and then followed after her with a shrug. Jongdae gave a sharp laugh, coming along after a wave in the backward direction. When they sat down at the table, the kneazle quite literally dragged Kyungsoo’s bag onto the ground, flying into it like he knew he was going to have to hide.

Because nearly a minute later, the Hufflepuff-Gryffindor combo was standing next to their table, eyes wide.

Chanyeol looked around, “Wait! Where’d Hildy go?! I really need to take her back!”

Baekhyun was searching as well, but the kneazle in Kyungsoo’s bag had stilled to a statue, not making a sound.

“Dude, what even happened?” Jongdae grinned. “How’d you lose her in the first place?”

 _“I,”_ Chanyeol emphasised. “Was just ending Magical Creatures and at that time I was holding onto the kneazle. But then, Baekhyun -” Now he sounded really sarcastic, “ - tried to talk to the kneazle, and voila, it escaped before we even knew what was going on!”

“So it’s Baekhyun’s fault,” Jongdae concluded, a grin on his face, but Kyungsoo would be able to recognise those calculative eyes anywhere. What was he up to? “Interesting.”

“Stop making me look like the disaster, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun made a face, face turning a faint red in embarrassment, shoving his shoulder lightly. “It was your fault you lost grip on her!”

“I wouldn’t have if you wouldn’t have tried to poke her nose, dumbass!”

Why was Kyungsoo not surprised.

“She went somewhere over there,” Kyungsoo pointed deeper into the library, casually shifting in his seat so that the bag was blocked from sight. “Maybe you should try looking that way.” He turned back to his book with an uncaring air, “Good luck with your search. You’ll need it, considering a cat has outsmarted you.”

“Always so classically mean, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun sighed like he’d gotten used to being bullied like this. “I always appreciate your assistance, really.”

Chanyeol on the other hand, didn’t even look like he cared, and the other three watched as he bolted from the table, rushing to search for the cat. Baekhyun rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, “Guess I should go make sure he doesn’t knock a bookcase over.”

“Are you sure _you_ won’t knock one down?” Jongdae grinned sharply, as if he was in on some inside joke that Kyungsoo didn’t understand, and Kyungsoo had just about enough. He was going to make his so-called best friend spill - or he would be spilling some guts soon.

“No!” Baekhyun turned red again, and then pouted, “Jongdae, I thought at least you wouldn’t tease me like this!”

“When would an evil Slytherin miss an opportunity to tease a cutely clumsy Gryffindor such as yourself?” Jongdae asked amusedly, before sending a flustered looking Baekhyun a smile, “But you’re right - Channie is equally capable of it, so you should probably make sure everything is okay.”

Baekhyun left and the kneazle poked its nose out of the bag once again. Kyungsoo and Jongdae exchanged a grin. Jongdae tilted his head at Kyungsoo, “Nicely done, Kyungsoo, true Slytherin material right there.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, but smiled. And then his gaze narrowed, “Like you’re one to talk.”

“I’m actually a Slytherin, it doesn’t count.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” He returned, but before he could press Jongdae for details, a loud shout made its way to their ears, making them forget all other things, “BYUN, PARK! WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AROUND IN MY LIBRARY! OUT! GET OUT RIGHT NOW! 15 POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR AND HUFFLEPUFF! AND DON’T COME BACK!”

 

* * *

 

That night, Jongdae and Kyungsoo celebrated Kyungsoo’s birthday in Jongdae’s usual extra fashion, a large cake already set up and singing the happy birthday song in his beautiful voice. He handed him a large present, revealing a bunch of books on wandcraft and alchemy, and Kyungsoo had gratefully hugged him. In all of this, the Ravenclaw had forgotten all about his task of finding out what Jongdae had been hiding from him.

“Yah, Kim Jongdae,” Kyungsoo slammed his hand down on the Slytherin table as he took a seat across his best friend at breakfast the next morning. Jongdae, to his credit, looked mildly concerned for his life but still sent him a grin, “Yah, Do Kyungsoo.”

“You better spill what you’re hiding from me,” Kyungsoo ignored his comment, eyes narrowing. Jongdae had managed to escape his clutches after the library fiasco since they split up for dinner. “Tell me what’s going on, you’ve been acting weird since yesterday.”

“Ah, wae? What are you talking about Soo?” Jongdae blinked faux-innocently, putting his cup of pumpkin juice down.

“Don’t give me that, you’re clearly plotting something - that, or you’re stressed about something,” Kyungsoo wasn’t playing games.

“It’s nothing Soo!” Jongdae chuckled, arms raising in mock-defense. “Don’t be paranoid. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Nothing to do with _me?”_ Kyungsoo caught on instantly, raising an eyebrow, and Jongdae frowned, “No, that was badly framed, don’t be so shady! It’s nothing!”

“You’re being shady!” Kyungsoo returned, frustrated. “If it has nothing to do with me, then whom?” His voice was flat, “Clearly there’s something, don’t even try. You know you can’t lie to me. And I can help.”

Jongdae stayed silent, frowning, and Kyungsoo grew concerned, “Dae...is it your parents again?”

“No, Soo -” Jongdae exhaled, smiling softly at his concern, “You know I would’ve told you if it was anything like that.”

“So it is something then,” Kyungsoo insisted. “Come on, tell me. I’ll find out anyway.”

Jongdae looked around the table, a few people sat a few seats down, and then his eyes quickly flashed across the hall before returning to Kyungsoo, “...I’ll tell you, but not here. It’s not - I don’t want anyone to hear and then spread rumours.”

“...Fine,” Kyungsoo relented. “But you’re telling me as soon as we get out of here, or I’m gonna sectumsempra your ass so bad -”

Jongdae burst out laughing, returning grudgingly, “I know, I know, control your murderous urges, honey.”

“Jongdae.”

“Wae?!” He whined back.

Naturally, the second the two stepped out of the Great Hall, Kyungsoo pulled him to the side, climbing up a deserted staircase and onto the first floor. Jongdae had DADA soon but there was enough time to stop and chat for a bit.

He crossed his arms over his chest and waited, “Well, what’s going on?”

“Listen,” Jongdae swallowed, suddenly looking like he wasn’t sure what he should say. Something told Kyungsoo he wasn’t going to like what was going to come next. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

Kyungsoo only narrowed his eyes.

“You know, how you said that Baekhyun might be cursed this afternoon…” Jongdae looked down at the ground once and heard Kyungsoo hmm in agreement. When Jongdae looked back up, his eyes were intense, face more serious than Kyungsoo had rarely seen before. “I think you may be right.”

Kyungsoo froze.

When he’d said it earlier, he’d meant it as a joke. But if Baekhyun really was cursed - it was really, really bad. Curses were a really dangerous magic, and well, Baekhyun could even be in peril for all he knew.

And Jongdae didn’t look like he was joking.

“How do you know?” Kyungsoo’s voice was tight. “How can you be so sure?”

Jongdae proceeded to tell him all that had happened - from what had happened back in Diagon Alley, to his strange behaviour in school, and up to the interrupted spell.

“Is he an idiot?” Kyungsoo asked harshly. “What the fuck was he thinking?! Unknown magic is so temperamental and he was trying it out for his story? Is he fucking insane?! Ancient magic interrupted is so dangerous! It usually always comes with a curse, _lifelong_ ones, if they aren’t done correctly!” He glared at Jongdae, “And what were you thinking?! You could be cursed for all you know too! Are you stupid?!”

“I told you I thought he was doing some dark magic or something!” Jongdae returned, voice low too. “And if he really was doing something fucking dangerous, I thought it would be better to stop him!”

“Yeah, you literally stopped him from completing the spell and got him and maybe even yourself cursed, congratulations,” Kyungsoo returned sarcastically.

“Look,” Jongdae took a deep breath. “I don’t think it’s a curse that will kill him, not yet anyway, I think he’s been cursed with bad luck. Which, right now, seems mild enough. I don’t know if it’ll get worse or if it’ll wear off -”

“Unlikely,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes. “How do you know it’s bad luck?”

“Getting the wrong ingredients, tripping and then getting scalded by the potions in class, only for there to be no nurse?” Jongdae scoffed. “Nearly dropping a telescope from the highest tower in the castle? Causing a periculo kneazle to escape? Please, he’s clumsy - but he’s not that bad. If that doesn’t tell you it’s bad luck, I don’t know what does!”

“But that hasn’t happened with you,” Kyungsoo noted, eyebrows furrowed. Jongdae nodded in agreement, “Right - and that’s why I think he was the only one to get cursed. Since I never actually touched the magic circle, and his magic was the only one that meddled with the spell, maybe it didn’t affect me?”

“Are you sure you didn’t touch the circle?” Kyungsoo looked unconvinced. “I mean, you said you pulled him out. Surely you stepped in the circle?”

“I...I don’t think I did, I only grabbed his arm,” Jongdae returned with a frown. “Either way, I don’t think I’m cursed - I mean, I haven’t had any bad luck yet, and I feel normal.”

“...And what if it isn’t a bad luck curse, but something different altogether? Something you don’t realise until the worst moment possible?”

“I don’t know,” Jongdae answered honestly, and Kyungsoo felt a jolt of fear run through him. The idea of something happening to Jongdae was terrifying, and Kyungsoo automatically reached for his hand. Jongdae gripped his hand back silently, offering a tense comfort.

“We have to tell someone,” Kyungsoo swallowed. “If this is bad -”

“We can’t, Baekhyun could be expelled, Kyungsoo,” Jongdae shook his head, but Kyungsoo argued, “But if something happens to you -”

“I’m fine, Soo,” Jongdae told him softly, but firmly. “I know that if anything happens to me, you’ll be the first person to rush me to the hospital wing and make them fix me. But right now, I’m fine - it should be Baekhyun that we’re worried about.”

“What if it’s too late? What if I’m too late to save you?” A deep set frown made its way onto Kyungsoo’s face, thinking all kinds of horrifying situations. Jongdae, however, shook his head, “Soo, calm down. Don’t panic, I have faith in you.”

Kyungsoo wanted to tell him to stop putting him under so much stress - to tell him to shut up and go to the hospital wing because this wasn’t safe and even if no symptoms were showing up right now - something could, if anything did happen to Jongdae, Kyungsoo - well, Kyungsoo wasn’t brave. He would blame himself forever for not having slapped Jongdae into listening to him. How could Jongdae expect this from him?

But Jongdae’s will had always been stronger than Kyungsoo’s. And he also trusted Jongdae’s judgement - almost too much, if anything. Right now, his eyes were dead-set in a determined expression, one that told Kyungsoo to believe in him, just as much as he did him. So, Kyungsoo relented, but also made a vow to himself to find out as much as he could to try and save Baekhyun (and hence Jongdae) from their absolute stupidity.

“I will kill you Jongdae, if anything happens to you,” Kyungsoo warned. “I’m really fucking serious.”

“Thank you, Soo,” Jongdae’s grip on his hand tightened briefly.

“Now what?” Kyungsoo asked after a pause of silence. “What are you gonna do about Baekhyun?”

“We have to help him,” Jongdae had already decided.

“Of course we will,” Kyungsoo shook his head. “Baekhyun’s an idiot, but he’s still my friend. Besides, he’s dead if we don’t. I just don’t think he’ll take the news too well.”

“That’s a given,” Jongdae sighed.

Kyungsoo stared at Jongdae, “You two really fucked up, didn’t you?”

“...Yeah, yeah we did.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for this chapter! As you know, we'll be back in two weeks with the next chapters!
> 
> Stay tuned~!
> 
> Miche xx


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